In late 2021, a beautiful medieval survival MMO, Myth of Empires, was launched. A month later, the game was removed from Steam due to a lawsuit from the publisher of ARK: Survival Evolved. Two years later, we finally have a resolution to the suit, and it’s a good one.

So, let’s start with a small recap of what happened, in case you’re just hearing about this now. In November 2021, Angela Game, a game company founded by a previous Snail Games employee, released their debut game, Myth of Empires, which was a graphically gorgeous survival MMO that was well received by Steam players, even if it was a little buggy, having between 30,000 and 40,000 concurrent players.

On December 1st, 2021, Snail Games and Wildcard, the developer and publisher of Ark: Survival Evolved, contacted Valve and issued them a cease-and-desist letter about the game. Two days later, the game was delisted and taken down from Steam. A lawsuit followed quickly thereafter, accusing Angela Game of stealing and using Ark Source code.

An independent software forensics expert, Bob Zeidman (yes, the same Bob Zeidman who took Min Lindell’s challenge), analyzed the source code of both games and concluded that Angela copied substantial portions of SWC’s copyrighted source code and tried to conceal its copying. It was also disclosed that of the 82 people mentioned in the screen credits for Myth of Empires, 60 of them were all former Snail Games employee names.

Zip forward to October 11^th, 2023, and Snail Games issued a press release stating that they have settled their case with Angela Game. Though the terms of the settlement are still confidential, what is known is that Snail Games will remove their DMCA claim, and both companies will work together to re-release the game. Snail will also assist in the distribution of the game. And Angela will pay ongoing royalties to Snail Games.

Myth of Empires is coming to Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation in 2024.

During the court case, Angela continued to work on the main game. DLC and expansions for the game are also planned.

What are your thoughts on this case? Was this the best outcome? Will you be checking out the game upon release? Let me know in the comments below.