It seems that Hi-Rez Studios has continuously received comparisons of their game "Paladins: Champions of the Realm" with Blizzard Entertainment's "Overwatch". Reports have indicated that most players usually refer to the multiplayer game as nothing but a clone of the team-based shooter. Reports have pointed out that comparison videos have been released, which pinpoints the game's supposedly obvious copy of most of the heroes in Blizzard's FPS.
Several sources have confirmed that many of the champions featured in Hi-Rez's shooter bear an uncanny resemblance to a lot of the heroes in Blizzard's game. The copy-cat allegations from many gamers reportedly created a controversy across social media, forums and video posts, which apparently got to a level that it was considered offensive. Last year's report from Forbes asked fans if it seems fair to label a game as nothing but a clone of another title.
Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris publicly commented on the subject that "Paladins: Champions of the Realm" copied the template of Blizzard Entertainment's "Overwatch". He reportedly expressed his opinion on Reddit, where he posted about the game's development history and talked about the game's inspirations as well as the sources of ideas. He clarified to the fans that their game was being concurrently developed with Blizzard's shooter. He explained that "it would be impossible for a studio of our size" to copy the game.
Harris also claimed that some of the elements that were speculated to be a clone from the Blizzard FPS have been showcased publicly by the developers. This was supposedly done even before the team-based shooter was officially detailed by its own developer. Gamespot notes that the COO expressed that they "were pretty surprised" when they saw the similarities of the two games.
It seems that most people from the games industry do not consider Hi-Rez Studios' Paladins: Champions of the Realm" as nothing but a clone. It is noted by reports that game development usually follows trends and research some of the gaps in the gaming market. Unlike Blizzard Entertainment's "Overwatch", "Paladins" is a free-to-play game that is designed to run on a lower-end PC.
