Paladins Strike Blatantly Steals Overwatch Art for New Promo, Studio Responds

Poor Paladins. They just can't seem to catch a break. When the game first made its debut, instantly the gaming community tore them apart for its uncanny likeness to Blizzard's multi-million dollar title Overwatch. Though there were undeniable similarities, eventually the hate simmered down as the game continued to prove its merit. However, it appears they are right back in the thick of it - this time with Hi-Rez Studio's mobile title Paladins Strike.

The latest "why" moment comes from a piece of promo art for the Covert Ops skin for Paladins Strike. Reddit was quick to notice that the background looked awfully familiar:

The Paladins version:

The Overwatch property:

Ouch ...

To be fair, the mobile game is developed in China where the laws are definitely less stringent than they are here in the United States but that didn't stop Hi-Rez from responding first by thanking fans for pointing it out, and then following it up with an explanation:

"First thing, thank you for your diligence in pointing this out. This art was created by a overseas partner studio for paladins strike and had not much in the way of oversight in its content creation by anyone internally at Hi-Rez. We will be looking into this immediately.

Moving forward we are well underway in a bit of a shift in how I plan to see our splash art executed to make things feel a little more unique to paladins that should hopefully allow us to control content creation better with a larger quality of output to boot, stay tuned."

This isn't the first time something like this has happened and it's definitely not a problem exclusive to the Hi-Rez team. It is good to see them address it head-on, however, and hopefully this misstep will lead to a closer eye on quality control overseeing their marketing team and the promotional material used.

Paladins Strike is available now on both iOS and Android devices.

What are your thoughts on the rising trend of stolen promo art? We've seen it with PUBG, we've seen it with Overwatch - we've seen it everywhere. Do you think this is something that needs to be addressed immediately or are you of the camp that just doesn't see it as a big deal? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below!