Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris comes to the defense of his company’s gamePaladins: Champions of the Realm, denying accusations that it is a clone ofOverwatch.
Ever sincePaladins: Champions of the Realmentered open beta on Steam on September 16th, the game has been accused of being a blatant ripoff of Blizzard’s popular hero-based shooter,Overwatch. The similarities between the two games are uncanny, and have resulted in numerous videos that compare the two projects to point out all the different waysPaladinshas allegedly stolen fromOverwatch. Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris has come to the defense ofPaladins, providing evidence that may suggest the copycatting was the other way around.
According to Harris,Overwatchdid not inspirePaladinsat all. On the contrary, the game’s development was fueled by thepopularity ofTeam Fortress 2. To that end, Harris also claims that the variousPaladinscharacters that seem to be copies ofOverwatchheroes actually existed inPaladinswell before they were announced for Blizzard’s shooter.
Furthermore, Harris states thatPaladinsitself grew up from a previous project from the company, a similar hero-based shooter calledGlobal Agenda.Global Agendareleased in 2010, whereasOverwatchwas announced in 2014. Apparently, the bulk of hero abilities that are said to be pulled fromOverwatchactually originated inGlobal Agendafrom Hi-Rez Studios, with only six of these abilities showing up inOverwatchfirst.
As far as general character designs go, Harris says that there are someOverwatchheroes that appear to be directly based onPaladinscharacters. One specific character he has pointed out is Ruckus, a goblin in a mech that has flight and combat abilities strikingly similar to that ofOverwatch’sD.Va. If Harris is to be believed, Ruckus was developed as a character before Blizzard revealed D.Va to the gaming world at all.
Another feature fromOverwatchthat people have accusedPaladinsof stealing is itsloot system. InOverwatch, players are rewarded with loot boxes at every level that containnew skins and other cosmetic itemsfor players to customize the characters in the game.Paladinshas an almost identical loot system, but as with the other similarities betweenOverwatchandPaladins, Harris claims that the chests in his game predate the feature being announced forOverwatch.
It’s hard to say whether or not Blizzard intentionally copiedPaladinsor ifPaladinschanged direction to be more similar toOverwatch. The evidence provided by Todd Harris, which suggests thatOverwatchlifted at least some ideas fromPaladins, is certainly compelling. However, it’s more than possible that the many similarities between the two hero shooters are just a matter of coincidence. Unless Blizzard issues a response to Hi-Rez Studios, we’ll likely never know for sure.
Overwatchis available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
