Runic Games calls for takedown of Torchlight rip-off on App Store

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there’s probably a finer line between imitation and flatout theft than Chinese developer EGLS Technology banked on when they launched Armed Heroes Online for iOS. Either that, or they just didn’t think they’d get caught when they ripped a bunch of visual and audio assets from Runic Games’ Torchlight, and put them into their own game.

Did nobody learn anything from Limbo of the Lost?

Runic resident Travis Baldree took his complaints about the game to Twitter on the weekend, claiming that Armed Heroes Online “wholesale stole most of the assets from Torchlight!” – a claim hard to deny when you look at these comparison shots from the two games. They didn’t even bother with a palette swap, the amateurs.

“This is different in that every one of their monsters is the same as ours,” he later told Kotaku. “It’s not like they took one thing because they were running short on time. They took everything. It’s so over-the-top.”

Maybe not everything – the game features its own unique brand of English. From the official Armed Heroes Online website:

After centuries of peace, the darkness falls, having the land swallowed by blood and chaos. Lords of old days disappeared one after another, leaving man trembling and moaning in hopeless shadows.The Lord of evils opens his eyes in the dark, he is waking, he is waiting. … Where are the heroes, the long been selected ones? … Will they appear before everything is too late? … Are you THE ONE?

Join hundreds of thousands of online gamers here to experience a real 3D MMOARPG, to enjoy fabulous real-time 3d actions and to make a difference on your own or with other online players on this novel land!

So… yeah.

Baldree added that his company was looking to have the game removed from the App Store, although today there doesn’t seem to be any listing for it so apparently that’s had a happy ending.