Activision Blizzard has once again been accused of plagiarism over a Call of Duty skin, with the asset this time being the Samoyed Skin in the upcoming Floof Fury pack coming to Call of Duty: Warzone. Last year, Activision Blizzard was sued over recreating work for the character Mara, who was part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare season one. The artist, Sail Lin, took to ArtStation to show the similarities between their own work, and the Call of Duty: Warzone Samoyed.
In the statement and accompanying images, Sail Lin shows just how similar the two character models are. You can see that the fur colour has been slightly altered with the CoD: Vanguard one looking more grey. The similarities extend right into the style of clothing both character models have, the equipment they are both attired with, and even the way the clothing is ruffled.
Polygon has noted that since the allegation came out, Raven Software has removed the images of the Samoyed skin from its blog post as well as references to it elsewhere. Whether this means the rollout for the skin will stopped or not remains unclear, with no official statement from Activision Blizzard or Raven Software over this alleged plagiarism.
If proven true, this will unlikely go down well with Microsoft either. Microsoft announced back in January that they had offered to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, a deal worth $95 per share and all paid for in cash. They expect to close the transaction by the end of Microsoft’s next fiscal year on 30th June 2023. However, earlier this month the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it would be carrying out an investigation into Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. The CMA will further decide if a more in depth investigation is needed in September over the deal.
Source: ArtStation/Polygon
