Tessa is a Features Editor at TheGamer. When they’re not playing video games, they’re lifting weights in the gym or reading in the park (touching grass is essential). Find them on Twitter at @tessakaur or email them at tessa@thegamer.com.
When it comes to Asia’s video game industry, we’ve seen the big, critically lauded hits mostly coming out of Japan for generations – at least, until this decade rolled around. While countries like Korea and China have had their own money-raking live-service hits, especially in the mobile market, it’s not until recently that we’ve seen them taking on the global landscape, and trying to elbow in on the single-player, narrative-focused genre.
Smaller studios in Southeast Asia have been putting out critically acclaimed indie hits like Coffee Talk, A Space For The Unbound, and Until Then, but when it comes to the games jostling for space amongst the big established IPs, we have to look at the big guns in Korea and China.
There Are Loads Of Games Coming Out Of South Korea And China
Last year’s Stellar Blade, which was developed by Korean studio Shift Up, sold a million units within a month, and those figures have only been buoyed by its wildly successful PC release. Black Myth: Wukong, from Chinese developer Game Science, had a legendarily huge launch, clinching the record for the most concurrent players on a single-player game on Steam.
There are also multiple premium-priced games coming out of China in the short-term, made all the more newsworthy by Black Myth’s success. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a Soulslike action RPG, taking place in an alternate Chinese history. Lost Soul Aside, an action-adventure RPG, is a sci-fi title inspired by Final Fantasy, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry. Phantom Blade Zero, an wuxia action RPG, also has a setting based on China, with elements of dark fantasy, horror, and cyberpunk.
NetEase, one of China’s biggest publishers, has been involved in a huge push of Chinese games to the global market. You know the company because of Marvel Rivals, one of the biggest hits of the year, but it has also published Once Human, FragPunk, Naraka: Bladepoint, and have two single-player games coming up: Where Winds Meet, and Blood Message.
I can’t say that any of these games particularly appeal to me, but I’ve found NetEase’s offerings to be especially annoying. As I watched the trailer for its newly announced Blood Message, I thought, oh, I’m looking at Chinese God of War. Sure, it’s more based on historical fiction than outright mythology (many Chinese games draw from its long history and the wuxia genre, which has been prominent in its media for eons), but there are clear similarities. There’s a father and son duo, brutal combat, what appears to be mild platforming and puzzle-solving, and zipline traversal. There’s also a touch of Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted in there, and some scenes are reminiscent of Ghost of Tsushima.
I was similarly annoyed by Where Winds Meet, which looks eerily similar to Phantom Blade Zero, which in turn draws from the same aesthetics as FromSoft’s games. Sans martial art influence, there really isn’t all that much unique about it that we’ve seen so far.
Perhaps I’m biased, but after NetEase all but ripped off Overwatch with Marvel Rivals, I can’t help but see these games – and many of the others coming out of China – as obviously being made to cater to audiences’ tastes, instead of giving them something they didn’t know they wanted. By and large, they feel deeply derivative of Western styles, a tacit acknowledgement that if China doesn’t have the maturity to create something that feels wholly its own, it’ll just jack the best of what’s already been done.
For what it’s worth, Stellar Blade is also basically a rip-off of Nier Automata.
That feels all the more painful when I look at the games coming out elsewhere in Asia. As I mentioned earlier, Southeast Asia has been forging ahead in the indie space, making games with hyperlocal influences that still appeal to players worldwide. It’s proof that there is a way to make culturally Asian games that do more than draw from Western influences and Asian history or mythology, while sprinkling in some wuxia to differentiate the combat a little.
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Is the problem that triple-As, by and large, retread the same ground in order to capture the same audiences? Perhaps. Obviously, there are plenty of derivative games in the West, so this isn’t a NetEase-specific problem, or even a China- or Asia-specific problem. But if NetEase is going to shamelessly copy from iconic hits, why not at least try to make them interesting or better?
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God Of War is fun why wouldn’t video game enjoyers want other similar games to it. Plenty of games follow a formula because it works. Even Ryu Ga Gotoku follows the same formula for Yakuza/Like A dragon so much so they reuse assets which is why theyre able to pump out sequels/side games so quickly. Sure Kiryu and Ichiban have different fighting mechanics but thats due to indepth characterizations to show the differences between the two and how they differ. But the formulas are pretty much the same. Also, I believe Yoko Taro even praised Stellar Blade and loved that it was inspired by his games. Studios are infact are allowed to be inspired by other IPs/Studios. By the logic written in the article people should be mad that most souls-like are very similar.
2025-06-28 05:14:33
“I can’t say that any of these games particularly appeal to me, but I’ve found NetEase’s offerings to be especially annoying” why be a game journalist when you clearly dont like games anymore. Outside of netease titles you listed, stellar blade, wukong (overrated but still great), phantom blade x, crimson desert… All of these games either are good or look good. So it seems your just rage baiting or complaining for seemingly no reason.
2025-06-28 08:50:24
I think it’s a bit early to say Crimson Desert is good. It looks good, but it also looks like it’s full of feature creep. Stellar Blade plays well but it’s story is pants. An article isn’t rage bait just because you disagree, it’s an op ed. I.e it’s a personal opinion.
By trying to appeal to a Chinese market I don’t mean they don’t want other players. Indeed they would love them. But they are absolutely targeting a Chinese market, everything else is a bonus. Look at Wukong. Did great in the West but did four times better in China.
2025-06-28 12:08:45
Or it’s possible to just not like this kind of games. I’ve played since the early 90’s and stopped caring about action games in general and these kind of actiong adventures/rpgs a long time ago. There are lots of other games to play. I can still, however, see how lazy Netease are in their ventures.
2025-06-29 08:57:45
It’s very simple. Those successful games are proven and beloved, investors and publishers want a sure fire return on their massive investment. They don’t want a risky bet on a new innovative game. They want their own God of War or Assassin’s Creed or Counter Strike. New unproven games are risky and investors don’t want that risk. Game development has insanely long production cycles, so millions of dollars and multiple years of effort better have a solid chance of earning them some money. Even if it’s half as good as God of War, it’s a much better bet than a completely new innovative idea that will “definitely revolutionise the gaming landscape, just trust me bro”
2025-06-28 10:11:57
Marvel rivals is not a rip off of overwatch. Marvel rivals is a game in the same genre as marvel rivals. To say its a rip off is so disingenuous
2025-06-28 22:27:45
You clearly never played overwatch, there’s not anything disingenuous about the comparison
2025-07-02 12:43:54
It’s not ripping off, it’s inspiration. You can literally say any game is a rip off of another game. Saints row ripped off gta but ppl love those games. COD ripped off Medal of Honor. The difference is they add to the source material to make it their own which is what these eastern companies are doing. Article is bogus
2025-06-28 08:28:46
Come on, Netease make their living from ripping off other games and putting in minimal effort. It’s a trash studio.
2025-06-29 08:52:06
While I understand concerns about overuse of derivative combat, genres like the hero shooter are much to broad to consider marvel rivals a rip off. For instance, if marvel rivals is a rip off of overwatch, then isn’t overwatch a rip off of team fortress? Isn’t any fps a rip off of doom and quake?
2025-06-28 20:29:41
Well it’s obvious they try to please the ppl around the world and it’s not a ba thing, I like assassin’s Creed and if they can make a better version of it id definitely ditch Ubisoft and play their games but ofc there are obvious boring ones not cuz they did something bad but literally made a 1:1 copy
2025-06-28 05:19:43
My guess is Western audiences aren’t the target. Adding Chinese mythology to an already established style makes them much more likely to sell in China. That way they are using a formula that works and introducing it to a new market that is rapidly expanding.
2025-06-27 14:24:19
No, we in the west ADORE Eastern history/mythology actually..and can’t wait to play these games!
2025-06-28 03:06:36
The west just wants games made to be games.
the one thing this new crop of eastern games has in common is that they don’t push radical nonsense.
it’s really not that difficult.
2025-06-28 15:14:36
You call these games boring but your main example, Marvel Rivals, is much more popular than Overwatch, the game it “copied” from. Is that because it’s so boring? Are you sure your not just mad that they are the ones making the games people actually want to play now?
2025-06-29 00:31:56
God of War is a good mechanically made game. It works and gamers like it. Why is it being similar a problem? It already has backbones rooted in fun.
Everything is a derivative of something else, you can always find similarities to other games. It’s really annoying people write these games off on that alone. Same thing with Rivals. It shares the same overall concepts, but those games are entirely different in their scope and how they play mechanically. They are almost two entirely different games. You can not just hop from Overwatch to Rivals and play the same way and expect at all similar results.
2025-06-28 11:36:31
China also has a lot of good indie games like Body The Turnaround, Tale of Immortal, Heroes Adventure
2025-06-30 09:18:12
It’s hilarious when people say marvel rivals ripped off overwatch when overwatch ripped off TF2 haha marvel rivals is only a similar genre yet an entirely different game with more in it, this whole article scream I don’t like these games so they’re bad, without even knowing anything about them like how overwatch was never the first of its general, there was also paladins too
2025-06-29 11:58:04
Marvel Rivals couldn’t be less of a ripoff of Overwatch if it tried. It’s in the same genre as Overwatch, it isn’t a ripoff. Overwatch did not create hero based shooters, Team Fortress 2 literally exists.
2025-06-30 20:25:58
This sounds like thinly veiled racism towards China, especially since western development studios plagiarize just as hard but no one bats an eye there.
2025-06-29 16:36:06
Yes they do. Western studios get shit on all the time for exactly that, especially when it’s as or more blatant than what Netease does.
2025-07-03 11:44:12
Yeah man, we really need some of that Western innovative stuff we love so much.
Like, some live service, photorealistic looter shooter with “diverse” designs (it’s a Western way to say that all the characters need to be ugly and bland, and the story be really insipid), now that’s creativity!
Game journalists really didn’t take well the decline of Western game Devs, uh?
2025-06-30 07:00:33
China often mimics, refines, and iterates. They rarely invent something new, and this goes for all industries they are in from video games, to car technology, and medicine. Not to say that is always a bad thing, there have been many big advancements that came out of China that were just great optimizations of existing technologies that just worked much better, like in medicine and EVs. In video games and story telling, I agree it can feel derivative.
2025-06-28 09:32:57
China copies or steals in every single industry there is. Why would gaming be any different?
2025-06-28 15:47:34
It’s not racism. It’s literally what China does and has been doing for decades. It’s hard to find something from China that is an actual new idea these days and not an upgrade or downgrade of something that already exists. At the very least those things get no real spotlight.
2025-07-03 11:48:00
