Paladins VS Overwatch: Who Ripped-off Who?
Since the moment Paladins: Champions of the Realm’s open beta showed it’s face on Steam, it’s been getting quite a bit of slack; being accused of ripping-off Overwatch. Though it may not be as blatant as this Chinese mobile Overwatch rip-off, there are enough similarities between Paladins and Overwatch to generate controversy and debates unanimously in favor of the latter. Hi-Rez Studios have been expressively confident about they’re latest game for the most part but all this heat has finally led Hi-Rez Studios‘ COO Todd Harris to defend it’s company’s honor.
According to Harris, Overwatch has in no-way inspired the development of Paladins. He claims that their game, like Overwatch, was inspired by the popularity of Team Fortress 2. He also clams that the various characters in Paladins that seems to have similarities with Overwatch heroes have actually been in development well before the announcement of Overwatch back in 2014. Among all abilities that the two games share, only 6 of them showed up first in Overwatch, the rest of which he claims were lifted from their own game Global Agenda, released back in 2010, and in Aurum, Paladins’ predecessor. Harris does mention, however, that Overwatch did have some nice features, like the killcam, that they decided to incorporate into their own game.
At this point it’s hard to say who really copied who considering that the points Harris tackled in his post are actually quite compelling. Afterall, Hi-Rez Studios couldn’t have possibly developed Paladins in a single year. Overwatch is also the more polished game and has higher production quality given that it’s made by Blizzard Entertainment, naturally making Paladins look like a cheap knock-off. So who did rip-off who? Unless Blizzard themselves respond to Hi-Rez Studios’ retort, none of us will ever know.
Dian Raval
