Video games have been copying each other since the beginning. There is no shame in it; by copying, games can refine certain ideas and even create new ones. Innovation is crucial for the medium and helps developers avoid stagnation.
However, not all copycat games are better than the original. Many of them are worse, reminding fans how hard it is to create something great. Of course, just because a game isn’t better than the original doesn’t make it a bad game. Some titles are clearly clones that are not on the same level as the original.
10 Balan Wonderworld is a weak clone of Nights in Dreams
Balan Wonder World immediately drew comparisons to the beloved Nights in dreams action game by Sonic Team and Yuji Naka. While Naka’s reputation wasn’t quite what it was in the ’90s, people were eager to see how his latest game would turn out from Sega.
Unfortunately, Balan Wonder World disappointed on almost every level. The game offers exhausting gameplay and almost every action is assigned to a single button. As a result, the title was both one of Square’s best-selling and worst-rated titles of 2021, with a 44 on Metacritic.
9 Call of Duty: Black Ops III wanted to be like Titanfall
Duty went futuristic in 2013 Call of Duty Ghostsbut Activision pushed things further down that path after the positive reception around Fall of the Titans. respawns Fall of the Titans was considered a great title when it was first released, with its futuristic setting and unique map traversal.
While the game didn’t sell great because it was locked to Xbox, Activision made their next few games look even more futuristic, complete with techniques like wall jumping for traversal. In the end, fans had such a problem with this that Activision returned to “boots on the ground” with Call of Duty: World War II. The franchise has remained in the past or present ever since, creating a number of them Call of Duty’s most memorable campaigns.
8 The Mighty No. 9 Is A Desperate Rip-Off Of Mega Man
After the success of Mega Man 11 in 2010, Mega Man fans were eager to see the Blue Bomber return to consoles. They were so excited that they called Mighty No. 9 was one of the most funded Kickstarters at the time. The game was funded within two days, and although they only needed 900,000, Comcept had reached $4,000,000 in total funding by the end.
Unfortunately, when the game was released three years later, it wasn’t what anyone had hoped. Everything from enemy to level design felt like a less impressive version of older Mega Man games, and didn’t even have a cool aesthetic to fall back on instead of the mediocre gameplay. And despite a successful megaman 11, fans are still hungry for a new game from this retro franchise.
7 Hyper Scape is a weak Fortnite competitor
Fortnite’s worldwide success did not go unnoticed by the gaming industry. Everyone wanted to join in, and it wasn’t long before big companies started releasing their own battle royales. In 2020, Ubisoft was even late in the battle royale market. In return, Hyper Scape tried to add some big shake-ups to the formula. Instead of shrinking the map, random sectors disappeared, and instead of killing everyone, one player had to hold a “crown” for a full minute at the end.
Despite a media blitz and paying many streamers to play the game, Hyperscape couldn’t capture the magic of what worked for other battle royales. The skill floor was too high and the changes made things more confusing than fun. Although they said they would be working on it, the game was discontinued in 2022.
6 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor couldn’t quite nail the Batman: Arkham feel
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is an example of how a game can be worse than its creator without necessarily being bad. Shadow of Mordor is a pretty good game, telling the story of how the human Talion and his elven conspirator Celebrimbor plan to take revenge on Sauron. Teleporting across the field and dominating orcs is about as satisfying as anyone could have wished for.
But that title just doesn’t compare to the Batman: Arkham series of games, which not only became one of the first good games based on a superhero, but are consistent across multiple episodes. In addition, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are considered two of the best games on the PlayStation 3, while Shadow of Mordor is just a “good” PlayStation 4 title.
5 Call of Duty: Blackout Isn’t as Loved as PUBG
While a lot of Battle Royales would eventually look like this Fortnite crib ideas, Duty decided to look to the OG for their first BR. Call of Duty: Blackout feels like a more polished, AAA version of the successful PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. There’s nothing wrong with it, but compared to the current BR genre, the UI and style feel a little dated.
There’s a reason Activision replaced it after a little over a year on the market, switching to the much-popular Warzone in 2020. Given the chance to find his own identity, war zone became everything black out was not, and is a great guilty pleasure game.
4 Assassin’s Creed Origins is the poor man’s version of The Witcher 3
In 2016, Ubisoft Taken off for the first time in a year Assassin’s Creed II to work on their next one Assassin’s Creed title. It turned out to be worth it; Assassin’s Creed Origins is one of the best games in the franchise. Bayek is a compelling lead character, and his quest to stop the people responsible for his son’s murder makes for one of the best stories in the franchise.
There is only one problem; the game was obviously heavily inspired by The Witcher 3. Everything from the world design to the mission-based story structure feels like it’s been ripped out The Witcher. To the game’s credit it’s a great copy, but it pales in comparison to CDProjekt’s genre-defining RPG.
3 Saint’s Row struggled to be more than a GTA clone
Major Theft Car III was such a huge hit that developers copied various aspects of the franchise. The modern cities, the open worlds, the rugged aesthetic. Some franchises found success, while others faded. Saint’s Row managed to find a job of his own, but not with his previous games.
While the first two games have their audiences, they could never match Rockstar’s opus. It wasn’t until Saint’s Row 3 when the franchise stopped trying to be a GTA clone and became its own thing, the series became a success.
2 Yokai Watch tried to tackle the Pokémon Juggernaut
The impressive sales of Yokai watch made the franchise seem like it could finally become the? pokemon competitor that fans have been looking for. Unfortunately, Level-5 continued to produce the games and a plethora of merchandise. The franchise went from fresh and different to old in just a few years.
The first three Yokai Watch titles were released from 2013-2016, but with the release of the third title, sales slowed so much that it took three years to finally release the fourth title. Today, Yokai Watch maintains some popularity, but pokemon remains king.
1 PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale was not Sony’s solution to Smash Bros.
In 2012, the platform fighting genre essentially consisted of: Super Smash Bros. Since then Super Smash Bros. brawl didn’t quite have the same love as melee, the track was wide open for Sony to create their own game. Unfortunately, Sony’s attempt at their own Smash Bros game was a miss. Compared to most fighters, Star had a weak amount of content and the presentation for the story mode was lacking.
Worse, the changes it made to the combat system were frustrating; the only way to finish off opponents was super moves, which could miss and make a player feel like they had worked for nothing. Oddly enough, the platform-fighting genre has only become more popular in recent years, but Sony has yet to give it a shot with this series.
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