Indie dev claims the sudden takedown of its game was due to Warhammer creator Games Workshop, and a set of familiar-looking shoulder pads

Tundra Interactive, the indie developer behind the indie strategy RPG Void War, has at last spoken out about why the game was temporarily removed from Steam earlier this year. The reason? Well, according to Tundra , it all has to do with a particular set of bulky, familiar-looking shoulder pads.

The original DMCA take down was issued by one Mal Reynolds on behalf of Games Workshop. Tundra initially believed this to be a troll takedown, given Mal Reynolds is the protagonist's name in Firefly, but it turns out this was a legitimate DMCA by the UK tabletop juggernaut.

Speaking to IGN, Tundra Interactive confirmed the DMCA's legitimacy, and claimed the given reason for the takedown notice was a pair of shoulder-pads shown off in its original featured trailer, described by Games Workshop as: "oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim".

Here's that bloke and his shoulders, for reference. Does this look like a space marine to you? | Image credit: Tundra Interactive.

Looking at this character, and his shoulder pads, there is a clear resemblance between the bloke and a Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. With the big spike attached, one could likely be mistaken for thinking it were a Chaos Astartes. Tundra told IGN it disagreed with this opinion from Games Workshop, but took the trailer off the Steam store page nonetheless .

In a statement issued to IGN, Tundra stated: "All of the artwork in the trailer is original work created by our artists. While we disagree with their assessment, the simplest way to get the game back up and avoid getting bogged down in DMCA process was to remove that trailer and move on. We may re-upload an updated version later after we find time to adjust that shot, but for now our priority is shipping content and finishing multi-language font support so we can finally deliver proper translations."

Regardless of this minor hurdle for Tundra and Void War, the game is back up on Steam seemingly unhampered by the DMCA notice, with a new trailer present to be safe. A word of warning perhaps, Games Workshop is keeping an eye out for potential copyright infringement! Be careful when designing grimdark sci-fi accessories for your bulky soldiers, folks.