Nodusfall Called a 'Cheap Elden Ring': Is HoYoverse Falling into a Media Trap or Deliberately Provoking?

When the first trailer for Nodusfall dropped, I was in a closed meeting room in Miami, not in front of a livestream screen as usual. But I could still hear the screams from gaming forums through my laptop screen. A winged figure evoking Malenia. A white-haired woman reminding players of Melina. And the entire gaming world in unison: "rip-off."

People call that shock. I call it a map. Russia 2026 was only the starting point of a migration of belief. And now, that migration is unfolding inside a three-minute trailer.

HoYoverse — a name etched into the DNA of mobile gamers through Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail — announced it was abandoning anime style for a realistic dark-fantasy world. They call it Nodusfall. The community calls it other names. Side-by-side comparison images appeared instantly across Reddit, Twitter, and the largest RPG forums. Comparing every character, every frame, every expression.

I am not surprised. This is not the first time a Chinese studio has been branded a "copycat" in global gaming discourse. The history of China's game industry is littered with similar controversies, and "rip-off" is a keyword so familiar it has almost become part of the identity. But with HoYoverse, the story is more complicated. They are not a struggling indie studio trying to find a foothold. They are a financial giant with billions in annual revenue, commanding one of the largest production budgets on the planet. They can buy anyone, hire anyone, and make anything.

So why would they choose the path of alleged copying?

When I look at HoYoverse's balance sheet, I see something that no gamer typing "rip-off" on Reddit sees: a company with too much money. Genshin Impact alone generates billions each year. Honkai: Star Rail shattered every revenue record in the gacha industry. HoYoverse does not need to copy anyone to make payroll. They could purchase the best design teams in the world and fund years of development without touching their cash flow.

But money cannot buy one thing: design DNA. FromSoftware spent two decades perfecting the soulslike language. They did not create Dark Souls in a day. They went through Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, Sekiro, then Elden Ring — each game another layer on the same philosophical wall. HoYoverse, by contrast, has never made a Western-style action RPG. Everything they know is anime style, gacha, cute characters, and colorful surreal worlds.

Now they are jumping into a sea where their opponent is the master.

So when I watched the Nodusfall trailer, I did not see laziness. I saw fear. They copied because they are afraid. They clung to familiar visual language because they know that a realistic dark-fantasy game lacking familiar signals — Malenia-style winged characters, Limgrave-style gloom — would be ignored by the very community they want to conquer. That is the psychology of the follower.

The key point most of the debate is missing lies in the four-player co-op mechanic. The analysis reports I have in hand confirm that Nodusfall focuses on co-op boss hunting with up to four players. Four players. This is not Elden Ring. Elden Ring is a solo experience — an open world built around solitude. A player in armor walks into a dead land, fights towering enemies alone, dies and resurrects in isolation. That is FromSoftware's philosophy: solitude creates weight. And Nodusfall? Four people hunting bosses together. That is Monster Hunter. That is a completely different experience in pacing, tactics, and emotion.

Calling Nodusfall an "Elden Ring copy" because it looks similar is like calling Monster Hunter a "Dark Souls copy" because both have a stamina bar.

Of course, I could be wrong. Let me check myself. What if the accusations are right? Not legally — copyright law does not protect game mechanics, and "inspired by" versus "copied" is a line no court has ever cleanly drawn. But culturally. If Nodusfall launches with gameplay that feels familiar to the point of boredom, if the combat lacks real distinction, if the world lacks character, then the current backlash becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that is far more dangerous than a few Reddit threads. Once the community decides "I told you so," they never take it back — no matter how good the game is.

I also do not ignore the fact that this controversy did not come from nowhere. A segment of the gaming community — a sizable segment — already harbored negative sentiment toward HoYoverse. They hate the gacha system, they hate monetization tactics, they hate the dominance of a Chinese company with a budget dwarfing Western studios. The "copycat" accusation is a convenient vehicle for dumping all that frustration on HoYoverse. When you are already tired of a name, any reason is enough to attack.

From Doha to Miami, I have never trusted screens. I trust the way people stand, the way they move, the way they react when the lights go off. Intuition is the cleanest form of journalism. And my intuition tells me this is not a copy job — this is a probe. HoYoverse knows exactly what they are doing. They released a trailer dripping with signifiers — too many similarities to Malenia and Melina not to make viewers flinch. That is not naivety. That is calculation.

Think about the marketing. This controversy has generated more clicks, more analysis pieces, more YouTube videos than any ad campaign HoYoverse ever paid for. On the principle that all attention is attention, Nodusfall has already won the first round. Now they need to win the second: when the first gameplay reveal airs, the community will immediately compare. If the four-player co-op is distinct enough, if the combat creates situations Elden Ring never could, the story flips. "Copy" becomes "homage." "Clone" becomes "answer."

A transfer market without AI is a market for fools. But a game industry without controversy is a dead industry. Nodusfall just gave us what HoYoverse wanted most: attention. The remaining question is whether they have the nerve to turn that attention into a product worthy of it.

I have watched golden trophies forged from owners' desperation and wingers' arrogance. Nodusfall is the same. It was not forged from gold. It was forged from the ambition of a giant trying to escape its own shadow. The real story is not whether Nodusfall looks like Elden Ring. It is whether HoYoverse dares to step out of the safe anime world where they are king, into a world where they are merely the follower.

Esports is not the future. It is the present pretending to be the future. And I am here to document that pretense. Nodusfall is another pretense — but this time, the pretense might become real.

The key takeaway: Nodusfall can be genuinely different, and the "Elden Ring ripoff" accusation rests on weaker evidence than you think. Visual similarities in a trailer are not proof of gameplay similarities. And when the real gameplay is revealed, you will see a very different story.

A testable prediction: within six months, HoYoverse will release the first gameplay reveal. If they execute their strategy correctly, four-player co-op will be the centerpiece, and the phrase "Elden Ring meets Monster Hunter" will dominate headlines. If they fail, the controversy will erupt again. I am betting on the first option. The strong never enter a battle without a plan. And HoYoverse, with an unlimited budget, can afford the best plan money can buy.

Look forward. Do not look at the trailer. Look at the game. And remember: people call it shock — I call it a map. The map of Nodusfall is still being drawn.