Why Do China's Upcoming Single-Player Games Just Feel Like Reskinned Western Hits?

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 , , 𝕴and , 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 , which was developed by Korean studio Shift Up, sold a million units within a month, and those figures have only been buoyed by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:its wildly successful PC release. , 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 game💃s coming out of China in the short-term, made all the more newsworthy by Black Mꦗyth’s success. is a Soulslike action RPG, taking place in an alternate Chinese history. , an action-adventure RPG, is a sci-fi title inspired by , Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry. , 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 bཧeen involved in a huge push of Chinese games to the global market. You know the company because of , one of the biggest hits of the year, but it has also published , , , and have two single-player games coming up: , and .

TG Resident Evil 9 Requiem protagonist in front of Village castle and Leon Kennedy.

My Parasocial Relationship With Resident Evil Leaves Me Conflic🔜ted About Playing RE9

I’m l🎶ess Resident Evil, more Acquaintance Neutral.

Posts 168澳洲幸运5开奖网: ෴ 🍌

NetEase’s Games Are Strangely Derivative

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 t🧔railer 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 lo🉐oks 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 deeplཧy 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 jus🉐t jack the best of what’s already been done.

For what it’s worth,꧅ Stellar Blade is also basicaꩲlly 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, wh♊ile sprinkling in some wuxia to differentiate the combat a little.

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-specifi💙c problem. But if NetEase is going to shamelessly copy from iconic hits, why not at least try to make them interesting or better?