The Chinese-developed, browser-based MMO Aurora Blade has been accused of containing numerous examples of blatant plagiarism by fans of Ragnarok Online. The accusers say that Aurora has copied assets from Ragnarok Online, as well as World of Warcraft, Maple Story and LaTale.

As pointed out by Kotaku, IGG--the Western publisher of Aurora Blade--has already posted a statement on the Aurora Blade forums: "We would like to explain that SkyUnion(IGG) is not responsible for the developing of the game, that is any character, artwork and graphic is developed by another company and this game is HOSTED by IGG."

Curiously, the IGG Team has also cross-posted its message on the Ragnarok Online forum, which includes a threat of an IGG forum ban for posting on the similarities.

We took a look at Aurora Blade's skill icons and compared them to World of Warcraft's, finding many suspicious similarities--a few of which we've illustrated in a simple chart (above, right).

The controversy is similar to last summer's Majestic Studios debacle, where the small developer was found to have stolen numerous assets from several big-budget games for use in its adventure title Limbo of the Lost.

Majestic Entertainment has responded to the plagiarism charges raised over its adventure title Limbo of the Lost (PC), asserting that neither the developer nor its publishers were aware of any wrong-doing.

"To the best of our knowledge no one at Majestic, [European publisher] G2Games or [North American publisher Tri Synergy] knew about this infringement and knowingly played any part in it," Majestic claimed in a statement released to GameSpot.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Thief: Deadly Shadows.

The game sparked controversy nearly two weeks ago when it was discovered that the game makes use of assets lifted from at least a dozen different games, including Blizzard's Diablo 2 (PC), Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls series, and ... Read more

More than a week after it was discovered that Limbo of the Lost used environments and backgrounds from at least a dozen different games, the three-man team at developer Majestic Studios has still yet to issue any sort of statement.

"Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home," Majectic's Laurence Francis told local paper Kent Messenger before the controversy, according to Telegraph.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

But while the team stays silent, freelance composer Marko Hautamäki, who was hired to provide music work for the controversial PC adventure title, has stepped forward to clear his name.

Hautamäki stated that all of the musical material he was "personally involved in" was original work. "I have the original project files of every music piece I made... Read more

Update 3: More comparisons surfaced overnight, revealing that Limbo of the Lost apparently contains background elements of Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, World of Warcraft artwork, and a shocking number of Unreal Tournament 2004 maps. Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

"This is not an old game that has been dressed up," director Steve Bovis once told QuandaryLand. It is also worth noting that developer Majestic was planning a sequel to Limbo of the Lost and was seeking a new background artist for the project.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Unreal Tournament 2004.

Given the sheer number of similarities from so many different games, it is extremely unlikely that all of the duplicate assets are a result of a common texture pack, as was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s apparent use of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 elements.

Update 2: Along with Oblivion and Thief: Deadly Shadows, it seems the three-man Majestic team stole assets from People Can Fly's Painkiller (PC)... Read more