#A faux firm has stolen indie horror dev Steelkrill’s latest launch and offered it as their very own – Destructoid
I’m an enormous fan of legendary indie horror recreation dev Steelkrill. They’re an especially artistic developer that has made among the most enjoyable horror video games I’ve performed in recent times. Sadly, it seems as if a fraudulent firm has ripped their total newest launch and is making an attempt to promote it as their very own.
One in every of Steelkrill’s first titles was The Backrooms 1998, launched into Early Entry in 2022 as a first-person discovered footage psychological horror recreation that tells the story of a younger teen who fell into the depths of the Backrooms from in style web creepypasta tradition. After a number of years of growth, Steelkrill is able to take The Backrooms 1998 out of Early Entry and into full launch with a brand new model together with improved enemy AI, bug fixes, extra soar scares, and extra.
Alongside the total launch PC launch, Steelkrill additionally meant to launch The Backrooms 1998 on consoles. Nevertheless, once they went to take action, they found that a faux firm had actually managed to tear all of The Backrooms 1998 and add it to PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Change as if it had been their very own recreation titled Backrooms Horror Escape.
Evaluating the true recreation, The Backrooms 1998, to the faux rip-off recreation, Backrooms Horror Escape, it’s very apparent they blatantly ripped the property, UI, and the whole lot, and easily added a filter or modified varied submit processing results to make it look barely totally different.
Since discovering the rip-off, Steelkrill issued a DMCA for the stolen property and recreation to all of the platforms on which it was listed. It’s since been taken down from PlayStation and Xbox, however on the time of publishing this text, it’s nonetheless up on the Nintendo eShop. In line with Steelkrill, Nintendo adopted up on the DMCA request asking for clarification as to why they assume the faux firm stole their recreation. Steelkrill was fast to level out that not solely are the stolen property a useless giveaway, however the supply code itself for the faux recreation exhibits all the identical correctly named property from The Backrooms 1998, and even features a VHS house video from once they had been youthful that performs in the beginning of the sport.
After doing a little bit digging, it seems this isn’t the primary time this faux firm has achieved this. Below the title ‘COOL DEVS S.R.L.’, whoever is behind the rip-off has additionally faux ripped recreation variations of Chained Collectively beneath the title Chained In direction of Heaven, and TCG Card Store Simulator beneath the title TCG Empire: Card Store Simulator. I even discovered a pair titles presently listed on Steam which can be blatant rip offs of current video games on the platform. For instance, a ripped model of Grocery store Simulator known as Grocery store Simulator Holidays 2025 that simply has it randomly snowing with brighter property, and one other ripped model of TGC Card Store Simulator additionally merely with brighter property known as Commerce ‘Em Up! TCG Empire Store.
Studying over some responses to what’s occurring, it appears as if whoever isn’t behind this isn’t solely ripping off builders’ laborious work, the stolen video games aren’t even in a playable state. A number of gamers have admitted they had been duped solely to search out the sport they dropped at be damaged and unplayable.
It’s actually a disgrace to see this occur to such an incredible developer like Steelkrill. They’ve an particularly distinctive capacity to create horror video games that incorporate the newest gaming tendencies—reminiscent of The Stairway 7, an anomaly loop recreation like Exit 8—or strive one thing utterly totally different and new like Rotten Flesh, a cosmic horror recreation wherein you need to seek for your run away canine in some creepy sewers whereas calling for him utilizing your microphone. I’ve loved all of their releases and am anxiously awaiting the upcoming launch of The 18th Attic.
Steelkrill needs gamers to maintain a watch out and watch out to verify the video games they’re buying to ensure they’re professional, in addition to the developer accounts of these promoting them. For builders, Steelkrill says they need to make certain to make use of IL2CPP of their code, which may also help obfuscate the code and make it more durable to steal.
