Why Similar RPGs Spark Copycat Claims in the RPG Scene

Whenever a new role-playing game appears with a striking art style or combat twist, social media quickly lines up with two reactions: excitement and suspicion. Excitement comes from players who see echoes of their favorite titles; suspicion comes from those who believe they are looking at a blatant rip-off. The recent discourse around games visually or mechanically compared to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shows how easily these accusations can spiral, especially for smaller studios.

This article explores why new RPGs so often get labeled copycats, how long game development really takes, and why similar-looking titles are usually the result of parallel evolution rather than theft. It also looks at the added pressure of the generative AI debate, which has become tightly coupled with conversations about originality and artistic labor in game development.

Shared DNA in RPGs: Inspiration vs. Imitation

RPGs have always borrowed from one another. Turn-based systems, elemental weaknesses, party roles, and even specific camera angles are part of a shared vocabulary built up over decades. When players see another painterly fantasy world with turn-based combat and a melancholic tone, some will naturally suspect copying, but the reality is more nuanced.

Why Many RPGs Feel Familiar

Most RPGs draw from a common pool of influences:

• Classic Japanese RPGs with turn-based combat and cinematic presentations.
• Western narrative-driven games that prioritize choice and character development.
• Tabletop systems that introduce stats, classes, and tactical positioning.

As studios revisit these influences, they inevitably land on overlapping features, such as:

• Stylized, painterly visuals over realistic graphics.
• Turn-based or semi-real-time combat with timing mechanics.
• Bleak or apocalyptic settings softened by character-driven stories.

These similarities are rarely enough to infer plagiarism by themselves, especially when development on different titles often runs in parallel for years.

Parallel Development vs. Copying

Parallel development describes the situation where studios, working independently, arrive at comparable ideas or aesthetics at roughly the same time. This phenomenon is not unique to games; it is seen across creative industries:

• Films based on similar premises releasing in the same year.
• Two technology products solving the same problem in similar ways.
• Books exploring a trend or topic that suddenly enters the cultural conversation.

In game development, parallelism is amplified by shared engines, common middleware, and global trends in art direction and game feel. With RPGs specifically, a studio might spend five or more years refining a combat system, only to discover at launch that another team has unveiled something strikingly similar—simply because both were chasing the same design ideal.

How Long Game Development Really Takes

From the outside, it can look as though a game appears out of nowhere, especially when marketing ramps up close to release. Players might see an announcement trailer one year and assume the project was greenlit recently. In reality, the groundwork for many games, especially RPGs, stretches back across multiple years of concepting, prototyping, and iteration.

Typical Phases of a Mid-Sized RPG

Even a small studio working efficiently can be locked into a concept for three to five years. When players accuse such a project of copying a game that was revealed much later, developers understandably feel demoralized. From their perspective, they have lived with the concept long before a later title entered public consciousness.

Why Timelines Are Often Invisible to Players

Several factors hide these lengthy timelines from the public:

• Embargoed prototypes and unannounced funding rounds that require secrecy.
• Fear of overpromising, as developers try to avoid backlash for delays.
• Marketing strategies that favor late-stage reveals closer to release.
• Internal reboots or re-scoping that never become public knowledge.

Players usually only see the project’s final form, plus maybe a couple of early trailers. Without a clear sense of how long the game has been in the works, it is easy to misinterpret the direction and assume the studio reacted late in development to another project’s success.

When Accusations Hit: Impact on Indie Studios

For indie and AA studios, reputation is as critical as budget. Accusations of cloning—or of using AI to cut corners—can erode trust with players and partners even when they are unfounded. Developers may need to spend valuable time proving originality instead of finishing patches or content updates.

Emotional and Practical Costs

These accusations come with tangible and intangible costs:

• Morale damage: artists and designers feel their work is being dismissed as derivative.
• Community friction: fanbases may split into defenders and critics, derailing discussions about the actual game.
• Media narratives: coverage can center on controversy rather than the game’s strengths.
• Business risk: potential partners, platforms, or award bodies may be wary of association with a perceived controversy.

For teams that have poured years into crafting a distinctive identity, having their game labeled a copy or AI-driven shortcut can feel like a personal attack, even if the criticism is meant abstractly.

How Developers Typically Respond

When these situations arise, studios usually take one or more of the following steps:

• Sharing early concept art and prototype footage that predates the comparison target.
• Clarifying influences openly, acknowledging what inspired their work while explaining the differences.
• Publishing development diaries that demonstrate the team’s creative process, tools, and iteration.
• Engaging with respectful critics while moderating or ignoring bad-faith attacks.

This kind of transparency can help rebuild trust, but it is not a perfect remedy. Once a narrative of “this game is a rip-off” has taken hold in parts of social media, it can be hard to reverse.

The Generative AI Factor: Awards, Assets, and Backlash

Debates about originality are now entangled with debates about generative AI. The controversy around Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its disqualification from the Indie Game Awards exemplifies how sensitive the industry has become to any AI involvement.

Award Disqualification and Strict Rules

The Indie Game Awards (IGA) publicly revoked Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s “Game of the Year” award after learning that generative AI had been used for placeholder textures during development, even though developers said those assets were removed in the final release. In a statement quoted on a community site, the organizers clarified that any use of generative AI during development—regardless of whether AI assets remained in the shipped game—was grounds for disqualification, because studios had agreed to a zero-AI clause when submitting their projects.¹

This strict interpretation underscores a growing divide: some sectors of the industry want AI nowhere near the creative pipeline, while others see it as a tool that can be used in early ideation or prototyping without diminishing the value of human-made final assets.

Studio Positions on AI

In response to criticism, studios associated with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have attempted to reassure players that the final game is a fully human-crafted product. In one public statement covered by gaming press, a studio representative emphasized that the art direction, character design, and voice acting were all created by human artists and performers, and that the team did not intend to rely on AI going forward.²

This is consistent with a broader trend: studios are increasingly explicit about their AI policies, whether for ethical reasons, artistic identity, or compliance with award and festival rules.

Why AI Feeds Copycat Narratives

AI and copycat accusations often travel together for a few reasons:

• If players suspect generative AI use, they may also assume minimal human input and, by extension, lower originality.
• AI art models are known to be trained on vast, often unconsented datasets that include copyrighted works, which fuels perceptions that AI outputs are inherently derivative.³
• A project that admittedly used AI as part of the pipeline can be widely perceived as taking shortcuts, even if the final assets are original and heavily reworked.

As a result, when someone believes a game looks reminiscent of another, it is easy for them to jump from “this looks similar” to “this must be AI-assisted” to “they copied.” That chain of assumptions may feel intuitive but is rarely substantiated.

Why Misconceptions Persist Among Players

Understanding why accusations spread so quickly requires looking at how players discover games and form opinions.

Trailer-First Impressions

Most players first encounter a new game through a short trailer or a few screenshots. From that tiny sample, it is natural to rely on pattern matching:

• If the color palette and camera angle resemble a beloved RPG, the viewer connects them immediately.
• If the UI uses similar fonts or layout conventions, it may reinforce the sense of déjà vu.
• If the premise can be summarized in a similar one-sentence hook, the player may consider it derivative.

The problem is that deep, structural differences—like how combat timing feels after 20 hours, or how narrative choices branch—cannot be communicated in a 90-second trailer.

Online Echo Chambers

Once a strong claim (“This is just a clone of X”) takes off in a comment thread or social media post, it can become self-reinforcing:

• Short, critical takes spread faster than nuanced explanations.
• Players who have not tried the game may still repeat the claim as if it were fact.
• Developers’ clarifications get less engagement than dramatic accusations.

The result is a distorted perception of the game’s originality, even among people who might otherwise enjoy it if they approached it without preconceptions.

How Players Can Criticize Responsibly

None of this means that players should stop critiquing games. Healthy skepticism and critical comparison are vital to the medium. However, there are more and less constructive ways to voice concerns about similarity or potential AI use.

Questions to Ask Before Calling a Game a Rip-Off

Before posting a harsh accusation, players can ask themselves:

• Have I actually played it? A few screenshots rarely tell the full story.
• Do I know the timelines? Could this game have been in development before the one I’m comparing it to?
• Am I confusing genre tropes with plagiarism? Many familiar elements are genre conventions.
• Is there evidence of copied assets or code? Genuine plagiarism usually leaves specific, verifiable traces.
• How am I framing my criticism? Framing something as “inspired by X” is different from stating “this stole from X” as fact.

This kind of self-check won’t eliminate bad-faith discourse, but it can help reduce collateral damage to developers whose only crime is working in a popular aesthetic space.

What Developers Can Do Proactively

Developers cannot control how the internet reacts, but they can mitigate misunderstanding through proactive communication:

• Share development timelines once a game is announced, including early concept dates.
• Openly list key inspirations so similarities are framed as homage rather than hidden influences.
• Clarify AI policies early, especially if they aim to be fully human-made.
• Offer deep-dive devlogs showing tools, workflows, and iterative design decisions.

While transparency will not shield a project from all controversy, it gives curious players a foundation to understand how the game came to be and empowers supporters to counter misinformation with tangible facts.

FAQ: Similarity, AI, and Originality in RPGs

Can two RPGs look similar without one copying the other?

Yes. Shared genres, influences, and tools make overlap inevitable. Studios often work in parallel for years, refining similar ideas independently. Without concrete evidence of asset or code reuse, similarity alone does not prove copying.

Does using generative AI automatically make a game unoriginal?

Not necessarily. Some teams experiment with AI for brainstorming or placeholder content and then fully replace or heavily transform those assets in the final game. Nonetheless, many awards and festivals now enforce strict no-AI rules, reflecting strong industry concern about originality and labor ethics.^1,3

Why are awards bodies so strict about AI use?

Organizations like the Indie Game Awards aim to protect human creators and set clear eligibility standards. Their policies often reflect worries that generative models rely on training data that may include copyrighted or unlicensed work, creating ethical and legal gray areas.^1,3,4

How can I tell if a game used AI in its art?

Players generally cannot know for certain just by looking. Clear studio statements, behind-the-scenes development materials, and compliance with event rules are more reliable indicators than visual guesswork. Some studios now explicitly label their games as AI-free to avoid ambiguity.

Is it fair to call a game a clone based on a trailer?

It is understandable to compare games after watching a trailer, but labeling something a clone or rip-off without playing it or understanding its development history can be misleading and damaging. Critique is most constructive when it is grounded in direct experience and specific observations.