- 6/15/2025
From shameless mobile clones to big-budget ripoffs, we're diving into gaming's most notorious copycats! Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're exploring the most blatant attempts to cash in on successful franchises.
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the Top 30 Most Shameful Copycat Games, Originality Be Damned.
00:17Number 30. Star Warfare Black Dawn, a.k.a. Bounty Hunter Black Dawn.
00:31Despite what the title may imply, no, this is not exactly a copy of Star Wars.
00:44What Star Warfare is blatantly trying to copy is the art style of the Borderlands games.
00:50Between the pseudo-cell shading of the worlds to the extreme texture work and even the UI, everything about this game looks like a knockoff of Borderlands.
00:58You even fight Skag-like creatures that are instead called Hatai.
01:02And those aren't psychos you're fighting, those are mobs.
01:06Really? Why not just play Borderlands instead?
01:09I'd hate to lose a new customer.
01:12Number 29. Sepia Go.
01:20Nintendo's Splatoon games have managed to secure itself a pretty meaty slice of the FPS market,
01:26which makes it a big target for those trying to steal players via hackneyed copycats.
01:32Take Sepia Go, for example, a Chinese knockoff game that straight-up steals assets from the Splatoon games.
01:38Yes, those are the same squid kids and ink weapons that you've seen before.
01:43The only difference is that everything in the controls and gunplay feels downright abysmal.
01:47Somehow, Sepia Go managed to stay on the market for three whole years before it was finally shut down in 2019.
01:53Number 28. The Last Hope. Dead Zone Survival.
02:09Strangely enough, there haven't been as many copycats spawning from The Last of Us as one might have expected.
02:15However, one developer named VG Games tried in 2023 with The Last Hope.
02:22In addition to having an eerily similar art style as Naughty Dog's game, The Last Hope had a character that was pretty much just Ellie with a different name, Eva.
02:31The similarities were way too close for it to remain on the Nintendo eShop, though.
02:35The game was only available for a month before Sony had it taken down.
02:39And before you ask, no, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about the game, let alone original.
02:48Number 27. LEGO Worlds.
02:51It isn't uncommon for a kid's IP to try and copy more successful titles.
03:02In the case of LEGO, a Minecraft clone made sense for the brand to chase.
03:06And we did almost get one of those between Mojang and LEGO before the deal fell apart.
03:11Years later, we got LEGO and Warner Bros. own Minecraft clone with LEGO Worlds.
03:16Alas, this was not the gem they were hoping for.
03:19LEGO Worlds was mundane in gameplay, and the worlds were super restricted and small for a game that wanted you to craft and build things.
03:27It isn't horrible, but for what it's trying to be, it does not hold a candle to the more successful OG.
03:33Just place the box in the middle of what you'd like to copy.
03:36Expand and adjust, then place the new copy anywhere you'd like.
03:41Number 26. Pocket All-Star Smash Brothers.
03:46You might remember seeing a clip go viral that featured several Nintendo characters that were given horrendous voice acting.
03:59That was Pocket All-Star Smash Bros., and it was a Chinese knockoff game built entirely off of stolen Nintendo assets.
04:07Every sound effect, cinematic, song, character, billboard, and what have you was ripped from one Nintendo game or another.
04:14And if you saw anything that wasn't Nintendo-related, it was an asset coming from a Capcom, Sega, or Konami game.
04:21Pocket All-Star Smash Bros. was removed sometime in 2017 due to financial reasons, according to the game's developer, Bian Chen.
04:29Number 25. Repo Horror.
04:46More borderline plagiarism invaded the Nintendo eShop in 2025, only this time it wasn't borderline plagiarism, it was straight-up plagiarism.
04:55While the 2025 smash hit Repo was stealing Lethal Company's thunder with more engaging gameplay on the PC market, publisher Boggysoft decided to release a repackaged version of Repo for some easy money.
05:09Repo Horror took assets from the original and delivered a lazy cash-grab version that only supported one player.
05:15It wasn't long before the game was removed from the Nintendo eShop.
05:19What's worse is that there are still tons of scam games like this on Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store, and even PlayStation Store.
05:27No. 24. Rad Racer.
05:46Regardless of its age, OutRun remains one of Sega's most iconic arcade games from its early years.
05:52Why it does, nobody knows, and as expected, someone has already tried to ride the game's coattails.
05:58Long before its merger with Enix in 2003, Squaresoft had attempted to make its own OutRun with Rad Racer.
06:05Though it wasn't as technically sound as Sega's own, Rad Racer saw moderately positive reviews, and even managed to sell nearly 2 million copies on NES.
06:14A much-improved sequel was made in 1990, but ultimately, OutRun has long managed to be the de facto arcade racer next to other iconic Sega racers like Daytona USA.
06:32No. 23. DC Dual Force.
06:35Isn't nature wonderful?
06:38I mean, lines have a special ability. Zoom in on them to read.
06:42Marvel and DC have long been trying to step on each other's necks to dominate the video game market.
06:48Marvel has been thrashing their competitor for a long time, but whenever push comes to shove, DC has often shown to be vastly weaker.
06:56DC Dual Force is one of the more humiliating examples of that, as it tried to compete with the monumentally successful card game Marvel Snap.
07:04Whereas Marvel Snap kept itself simple and easy to play, DC Dual Force tried way too hard to differentiate itself, and ultimately made something overly complicated, with unnecessary mechanics and games lasting way too long.
07:18DC Dual Force didn't even last six months before it was shuttered and delisted.
07:23Meanwhile, Marvel Snap is laughing all the way to the bank.
07:26DC Dual Force is still the most exciting.
07:27DC Dual Force is still the most exciting.
07:32Number 22. Concord.
07:40Save.
07:44Following the success of Overwatch, probably Monsters and Firewalk Studios decided to shoot for the stars and make their own hero shooter.
07:53Would have been a bold move had it launched in 2016, 2017, or even 2018.
07:59But fast forward to 2024, a whole eight years and hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain later, and no one was impressed.
08:07Concord was a steaming pile of mediocrity, with its bland character designs, unremarkable environments, slow movement, and weird focus on story during marketing.
08:18It was a game no one wanted.
08:2321. War Gods, Zeus of Child
08:32It was called the God of War at Home during its short-lived run, and it has since become one of the earliest troubling signs of digital store slop, or e-slop.
08:48Developed by Dolaka Ltd., War Gods, Zeus of Child was a desperate attempt in tricking Xbox players into thinking that they were buying a $4 God of War game.
08:57The game even used its own cheap carbon copy of Kratos.
09:02Obviously, the game was swiftly taken down after the internet put it on blast, though a couple of days later, Dolaka tried to put out another knockoff game.
09:17Dinosaur Falling Survival was a misspelled cash-grab attempt targeted towards Fall Guys.
09:23Classy.
09:24Number 20.
09:30The 3D Battles of World Runner
09:32In 1985, Sega released a killer arcade title called Space Harrier.
09:43It was widely touted within the industry for its incredible graphics and fun, jet propulsion-based gameplay, and it was subsequently ported over to dozens of home consoles.
09:52By all accounts, it was a monumental success, and in came the 3D Battles of World Runner to leech off it.
10:08This one came from Square, and was released for the NES.
10:11The game was a technical marvel, being one of the first to utilize stereoscopic 3D and forward-based scrolling effect that allowed players to move in any direction.
10:19Technical marvel aside, it was an obvious rip-off of Sega's game and its innovative technology.
10:30Number 19.
10:31Pac-Man Party
10:40Someone should have told Namco Bandai that they were about ten years too late to get aboard the Party Bus.
10:46In 1999, Hudson Soft and Nintendo released the brilliant Mario Party.
10:51The multiplayer gameplay was highly praised, and it became the go-to sleepover game.
10:55The series is still going strong today, with Super Mario Party being released in 2018.
11:00In 2010, Namco Bandai ripped the formula right off for Pac-Man Party.
11:05They weren't even inventive enough to give it its own title.
11:16Making it worse is Namco Bandai's obvious inferiority to Nintendo, resulting in an inferior game no matter which way you slice it.
11:24Number 18.
11:32Quantum Theory
11:41In 2006, Cliff Blazinski and Epic Games gave us Gears of War, which proved to be one of the next-gen Halo killers.
11:47It proudly sat alongside Halo and Call of Duty as the go-to multiplayer games of the generation, with particular attention going to its graphics and cover-based shooting mechanics.
11:57Nearly five years later, Team Tachyon released Quantum Theory.
12:10Just a single glance at its artwork is enough to give away its obvious inspiration.
12:14Like Gears, the characters are muscular and wear large, bulky pieces of armour.
12:18The guns and camera angles are virtually identical, as is the game's cover-based shooting mechanics.
12:23They're so similar, we're surprised Epic didn't slap them with a lawsuit.
12:37Number 17.
12:38The Legend of Zelda, Lonk's Awakening
12:47This is probably not the rip-off you're expecting.
12:49Flappy Bird was one of the world's biggest mobile games in January of 2014, becoming the most downloaded free app on the App Store.
12:57However, the Flappy Bird wasn't long for this world, and he was put down by his creator on February 10th, 2014.
13:04Naturally, a ton of clones and rip-offs sprouted up in its wake to fill the gap and satiate the addictions of players everywhere.
13:09The Legend of Zelda, Lonk's Awakening
13:16The Legend of Zelda, Lonk's Awakening was one of these games, and it was essentially just Flappy Bird with a Zelda-themed coat of paint.
13:20Number 16.
13:27Boxmaker
13:35This game is just a mess on all accounts.
13:37Nintendo released Super Mario Maker in 2015, an interesting side-scroller that let players create their own Mario courses.
13:45A couple years later, we got the glorious Boxmaker.
13:54Boxmaker all but admits that it ripped off Super Mario Maker in its grammatical abomination of a Steam description.
13:59It's not just the concept that the developers ripped off.
14:02The music, the sound effects, the color scheme, the gameplay mechanics… everything is ripped straight from Mario.
14:15Number 15.
14:16Legend of Crouching Dragon
14:24Blizzard isn't one to take things lying down.
14:26Not long after Hearthstone was released in closed beta, a Chinese developer swooped in and ripped off the concept.
14:32Even the logo was strikingly similar.
14:34Legends of Crouching Dragon, Generals of the Three Kingdoms was released the following fall season on mobile devices, and Blizzard was not happy.
14:49They launched a copyright violation lawsuit, resulting in Legend of Crouching Dragon being taken off the App Store,
14:54and its servers being temporarily suspended.
14:57In 2014, Blizzard won the lawsuit, and developer Unico Interactive was reportedly asked to hand over $1.6 million in compensation.
15:11Number 14.
15:12Kung Fu Panda – Showdown of Legendary Legends
15:15Fighting games are tricky to pull off, as titles like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Super Smash Bros. pretty much nailed the formula.
15:29It seems hard to make an original fighting game these days, and as such, new ones are often compared to the classics.
15:34But Kung Fu Panda is essentially a one-to-one remake of Super Smash Bros.
15:41The gameplay and look are identical, complete with increasing percentage points as a damage counter, a drop-in from above after elimination, crowd noises, orchestral music, and even that colorful explosion graphic that accompanies a knockout.
15:59If Poe was in Super Smash, you literally couldn't tell the difference.
16:10Number 13.
16:11Final Combat
16:12And here we have another blatant Chinese ripoff.
16:23Like Kung Fu Panda, Final Combat is a one-to-one ripoff of Team Fortress 2, only without the quality.
16:29The character classes are exactly the same, although they lack the charm and sense of humor of the original cast.
16:34The game also copies numerous elements from Team Fortress, including gameplay mechanics and the colorful, cartoony art style.
16:47It could make for a decent, albeit blatant, ripoff if it weren't for the horrible controls, persistent bugs, and rampant framerate issues.
16:54It's just a bad game all around.
17:04Number 12.
17:05Disney Infinity Series
17:13The toys to life genre exploded when the Skylanders franchise released in 2011.
17:17While some games, like LEGO Dimensions, have managed to set themselves apart, Disney Infinity practically replicated the formula.
17:24Level up your favorite Disney character, buy power discs for more weapons and improved stats, and beat up the bad guys.
17:30You could even design your own levels, and feature which would evolve in 2.0 and 3.0.
17:34However, there just wasn't enough content, and buying a new version every year quickly became expensive.
17:47By the time the series had reached its true potential, players had left.
17:51Eventually, Disney called it quits, and promptly shut down developer Avalanche Software and its publishing division.
17:57Number 11.
18:04Another Bound Neo
18:12The GameCube didn't have much, but it did have Metroid Prime, a.k.a. perhaps the greatest first-person shooter of all time.
18:19Metroid Prime influenced untold amounts of developers and video games, and it's certainly not rare to see elements of it in various other first-person
18:26shooter and adventure games.
18:35But Another Bound Neo is a straight rip-off.
18:38It looks exactly the same, and the screen layout alone could fool anyone not deeply familiar with Metroid Prime.
18:44Put screenshots next to each other, and Another Bound Neo might just pass the taste test… or sight test, in this case.
18:55Number 10.
18:56The Great Gianna Sisters
19:04Copycat games have been an issue long before mobile gaming was plagued with them.
19:07As the oldest entry on this list, The Great Gianna Sisters was a shameless clone of Super Mario Brothers.
19:13Just look at this!
19:14It's as if the art style was directly lifted from Super Mario Brothers, and the developers made tiny tweaks to look slightly different.
19:27While it's believed that Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the developers, the rumor has since been proven false.
19:33However, Nintendo did take part in swaying sales away from Gianna Sisters.
19:40Number 9.
19:44Trail of Ibn Battuta
19:46It's hard to imagine anyone trying to replicate the look and feel of the Uncharted series.
19:59Considering the game's size and scope, it'd be hard to pull off… and yet someone still tried to copy it.
20:05What resulted was Unearthed Trail of Ibn Battuta.
20:08A game that tried so hard to look exactly like Uncharted, the main character looks like he could be Nathan Drake's cousin.
20:15He's armed by an arms dealer and funded by a wealthy antiquity smuggler.
20:19And I suppose they're all after a share of that dark, cursed, and valuable thing.
20:23The most notable flaw here is the incredibly awkward animations. Everyone looks stiff as a board.
20:29The reviews on Metacritic aren't lying.
20:39Number 8.
20:40The Simpsons Skateboarding
20:4650-50 grime!
20:47The Simpsons have had some pretty good copycat games over the years, with a few games successfully
20:52setting themselves apart from the games that inspired them.
20:55However, not every title was a real shiner.
20:58Enter The Simpsons Skateboarding, a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater clone that forgot to include everything that made the games fun.
21:12Why can't I pull off this trick?
21:14Why am I not able to grind on that railing?
21:16Why is it so frustrating to control?
21:18The game was buggy, the physics were broken, and it failed to replicate the fluidity Pro Skater was known for.
21:24Hey dude, clever move!
21:27Alright!
21:29Number 7.
21:30Sonic Shuffle
21:37Mario Party has been known for its simple yet replayable gameplay.
21:41You hit a dice block, navigate your way to a star, and play a bunch of mini-games.
21:45Few have tried to replicate this formula, and very few have succeeded.
21:50Sonic Shuffle did not succeed.
21:57The game was essentially Mario Party with a Sonic skin, but its gameplay was too confusing.
22:02You draw a random card from your hands to move, but you can also steal an opponent's card.
22:07What?
22:08And, oh, the load times.
22:10You spend more time waiting on the game to load than playing it.
22:13This game was just another case of Sonic trying to be like Mario.
22:23Number 6.
22:24Fur Fun, AKA Kewpie Jazzy.
22:26These days, it's not rare to see a game billed as a spiritual successor end up being a poor imitation.
22:38Fur Fun was a Steam game that desperately tried jumping on the ukulele hype train in early 2017.
22:43Like other abusive Steam developers, Fur Fun was littered with stolen assets, using gold ingots from Minecraft and ripping music straight out of Banjo-Kazooie.
22:59Oh, and did we mention a YouTuber published this?
23:02Yep.
23:03Dallas Review not only published the game, but he also provided some of the worst narration we've ever heard.
23:08On top of that, he went out of his way to file DMCA takedowns and hide any negative criticism.
23:15Fur Shame.
23:22Number 5.
23:23Castle Miner.
23:31Mojang Studios' Minecraft is the game of our generation.
23:35And with over 200 million copies sold, it is the highest-selling video game of all time.
23:40There are bound to be a few rip-offs.
23:42Perhaps the worst of all was Digital DNA's Castle Miner.
23:51This, too, is a block-building sandbox game centered around mining for materials and building structures.
23:56It was just one of many Minecraft rip-offs released through Xbox Live indie games, and while it was arguably the worst,
24:03it was also the most successful, selling over one million units.
24:07It just goes to show that sometimes shamelessly ripping off something else does pay off.
24:18Number 4.
24:19Mole Cart.
24:26Once again, we have a shameless Chinese knockoff in the form of Mole Cart.
24:30Released for iOS in 2012, Mole Cart is exactly what it sounds like.
24:35Comparisons to Mario Kart were obvious and instantly made by critics and fans alike,
24:39with nearly every review in the App Store mentioning its obvious inspiration by name.
24:51In fact, entire courses were ported over, including Moo Moo Meadows and Mushroom Gorge.
24:56And the items, blocks, and sound effects were nearly identical.
24:59It didn't take long for Nintendo to take notice, and the game was quickly taken off the App Store.
25:04However, it was later re-released under the title Mole Cart 1, and a sequel was released the following September.
25:18Number 3.
25:19Cartoon Network.
25:20Punch Time Explosion.
25:28There are so many games trying to copy the success of Super Smash Bros.
25:33What most of them fail to realize is that you need a strong character roster, good level design, and a balanced game.
25:39Punch Time Explosion had a pretty decent character roster, like Dexter, Billy and Mandy, Nigel Uno, Samurai Jack, and the Powerpuff Girls.
25:46However, most of these characters were too overpowered, and most of them played too much like their Smash Bros. counterparts.
26:02The game even had its own version of Subspace Emissary from Brawl.
26:06Punch Time Explosion had the potential to be a great Cartoon Network branded game, but it turned out to be yet another Smash Bros. clone.
26:13Number 2.
26:20Infinite Crisis.
26:26MOBAs are all the rage these days, but the market has become so saturated that there's almost no room for a new game.
26:33Unfortunately, Warner Bros. Interactive and developer Turbine realized this a little too late.
26:37Infinite Crisis has you playing as your favorite DC character, trying to destroy the enemy team's base.
26:44The Caped Crusader is a powerful energy-based bruiser with a strong harass and the ability to quickly get up close and personal with enemy champions.
26:51It was a decent game, but the problem is that we already have League of Legends, Dota 2, and Smite.
26:56With all three having established communities, you'd have a hard time trying to get players to switch over.
27:02The game soon found itself in a crisis of its own, and servers were shut down less than five months after release.
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27:27Number 1. The War Z, aka Infestation Survivor Stories.
27:41If you want to understand the definition of shameless, this game perfectly encapsulates the meaning.
27:46The War Z was one of the many games that tried riding the coattails of Daisy during the peak of its success.
27:52In fact, War Z went so far to replicate the game that it looked like an exact copy.
28:04Problems quickly escalated when the developers were caught lying about features within their game,
28:08and they would incorporate microtransactions later down the road.
28:12Add in homophobic slurs from the executive producer and censoring criticism,
28:16and War Z would go down as one of the worst games ever made.
28:22In the mood for more awesome gaming content?
28:28Be sure to check out this video here on MojoPlays.
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