As if the whole PUBG/Fortnite hubbub wasn’t enough, it appears that the gaming industry is seeing another big fight brewing, this time between Paladins and Blizzard’s Overwatch.
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For the longest time, the developers at Hi-Rez Studios have been defending the design of Paladins, even though some players have insisted that it ripped off Overwatch‘s formula to some extent. It’s been explained in the past by Hi-Rez’s COO that “we created almost all the Paladins classes and abilities using Global Agenda and Smite as our template.”
Hi-Rez CEO Stew Chisam held nothing back in a recent tweet, quipping about the similarities between Overwatch‘s latest hero, and an existing champion in Paladins. He asked, “Quick poll: If I happened to notice and point out any similarities between these two characters, would that make me the Pot calling the Kettle black, or the Kettle calling the Pot black? This will keep me up tonight unless I get a clear answer.” He then posted a picture of the two soldiers side-by-side, along with another picture featuring said pot and kettle. (You can see the tweet below.)
Quick poll: If I happened to notice and point out any similarities between these two characters, would that make me the Pot calling the Kettle black, or the Kettle calling the Pot black? This will keep me up tonight unless I get a clear answer. pic.twitter.com/rt9j3NT0S0
— HiRezStew (@schisam) March 1, 2018
Needless to say, fan response was immediate, and it was generally negative. Most people assume that Paladins is some kind of Overwatch rip-off, so Stew’s point went right over their heads.
You guys have “borrowed” many concepts from other games for years, a tweet like this only shows the unprofessionalism and hypocrisy of your company. Pure ignorance.
— Yutaka Hayashida (@RyuIsNotReal) March 1, 2018
The difference between Hi Rez and Blizzard is that Blizzard doesn’t need to create controversy to prove that their game is good. Thanks for showing once again that you are HiRez.
— Brojin#MemeSquad (@B0rjin) March 1, 2018
So quick question to you. After you guys “borrowed” so many concepts from Overwatch specifically and now jumping on the Battle Royal bandwagon, can you really run your mouth because you think these two are alike solely because they’re females with armor?
— Event Horizon (@Event_Horizon15) March 1, 2018
A few fans also came to the defense of Schrim’s tweet, noting that Paladins‘ designs were, in fact, in production before Overwatch came to be. But, as you might guess, they’re being outweighed by the critical majority.
Paladins was in production before Overwatch was and seemingly a lot of the Paladins champions are (loosely) based off of Smite gods, which isn’t really a problem considering it’s still Hi-Rez’s work
— Nick Staab (@ItsYaBoiZoots) March 1, 2018
— Joe Balek (@AstuteDunsparce) March 1, 2018
When Kotaku reported on the story and reached out to Chisam for clarification, he noted, “The tweet is mainly a comment on how absurd all of these types of comparisons tend to be. I think it would be nearly impossible at this point for any game of this type to release a new champion that did not have obvious comparison points to other characters in other games in some form or fashion. At the end of the day, in this genre, we all stand on the shoulders of Team Fortress 2 anyways.”
Blizzard has yet to comment on the matter. But, yeah, there’s definitely some shade thrown here.
Both Overwatch and Paladins are available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
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