Nodusfall and the 'Elden Ring Rip-off' Shock: When a Trailer Is Just the Book Cover

On the night Nodusfall's trailer launched, I sat in my small room in Busan with three browser tabs open. The first tab played the 2-minute-47-second reveal video, the second was a Korean gaming forum heating up by the minute, and the third was a comparison page someone had quickly assembled. Within an hour, the phrase 'rip-off' appeared at least forty times in the comments. A winged character was placed next to Malenia. A white-haired woman was placed next to Melina. The community had delivered its verdict before the game ever hit shelves.

I opened my notebook and wrote: Every match is an excavation. I just need a shovel and curiosity.

HoYoverse, the Chinese company behind Genshin Impact and the Honkai series with billions in annual revenue, announced Nodusfall – an action RPG in a realistic dark-fantasy style, completely abandoning the anime aesthetic that built its name. This is a rare strategic pivot: the world's largest gacha developer deciding to enter the arena of FromSoftware, the Japanese studio behind Elden Ring – the 2026 Game of the Year, widely regarded as the gold standard of the soulslike genre.

The contrast could not be clearer. One side is a financial giant with abundant capital; the other is a design master with a legacy spanning over a decade. And Nodusfall, from its very first greeting, was placed on the scale of a comparison no game ever wants to face.

The gaming community quickly listed the similarities. A winged female character reminded players of Malenia; another white-haired woman was compared to Melina; the gloomy setting, ruined architecture, towers rising from the mist. Side-by-side images spread at breakneck speed. 'Too many similarities,' one wrote. 'HoYoverse has gone beyond taking inspiration,' another concluded.

But there is one detail most accusers overlook. Nodusfall features cooperative boss-hunting for up to four players. Four. That number changes how the game operates entirely. If Elden Ring is a solitary experience, facing the world with only yourself, Nodusfall points toward a completely different experience: planning with teammates, coordinating skills, bringing down colossal bosses together. This is Monster Hunter's mechanic, not FromSoftware's masterpiece.

Looking at the history of the soulslike genre, I recall the early Dark Souls years. Back then, nobody called Demon's Souls a King's Field clone – even though FromSoftware created both. The term 'soulslike' was born precisely because the community understood that a genre can be shaped by a pioneering work without making everything after it a thief. Darkness, mist, ruined castles, brutal boss fights – that is the common language of the genre, like the language of football: every team runs on grass, takes corner kicks, defends and counter-attacks, yet no one calls Pep Guardiola a copy of Alex Ferguson.

The point my analysis wants to stress is this: this controversy is not really about Nodusfall; it is about the rise of Chinese developers in the premium console/PC segment. HoYoverse is testing a big question: can a company with enormous financial resources but no dark-fantasy pedigree compete with the genre's definer? If the answer is yes, it will signal dozens of other Chinese developers to enter a market dominated by Japan and the West for two decades.

Look at the data. Elden Ring sold over 25 million copies, more than the combined lifetime sales of the Dark Souls series before it. That record turned FromSoftware from a niche cult studio into a global cultural phenomenon. Any dark-fantasy game released after 2026 will be compared to this masterpiece. That is why many new projects adopt similar combat styles and world design – they are following a proven formula. But following a formula is not copying. The question is whether the formula is refreshed.

Nodusfall has one advantage most soulslike games lack: the uniqueness of cooperative play. Imagine a boss fight where four players must coordinate like an esports team. One draws the boss's attention, another harasses from behind, two others execute tactical strikes. That is an entirely different experience from facing Malenia alone in Elden Ring. If HoYoverse showcases this mechanic well, the 'copycat' narrative will quickly turn into 'inherit and evolve.'

In the dusty archive, I found a team that never made the headlines.

That is how I talk about sports and game stories. But there is an uncomfortable truth I cannot ignore: copyright law barely protects game mechanics. No court in the world convicts a game for having similar combat style or a dark-fantasy setting. What can be legally challenged are concrete assets – character designs, artwork, names. But a winged character is not Malenia, and a white-haired woman is not Melina. They are archetypes – character templates that existed in mythology and pop culture long before.

So why is the controversy so intense? I believe there is a layer of emotion beneath the technical surface. Players invested so much heart in Elden Ring. They love that world, love those characters enduring tragic fates, love the feeling of victory after dozens of defeats. When a new game appears with images evoking those memories, the first instinct is not curiosity but protection. That is the jealousy of fans toward their idol.

I have witnessed that emotion elsewhere. At the 2026 World Cup, when South Korea faced Portugal, no one accused Korea of 'copying' Portugal's counter-attacking tactics. Football has evolved long enough for people to realize tactics are a shared language, borrowed, adapted, and transformed across generations. But the game industry is young, and the term 'soulslike' has existed for barely a decade. The community is still struggling to define the line between inspiration and copying.

Everything will become clear when actual gameplay is revealed. A 10-minute video of a four-player boss fight will be a hundred times more persuasive than still images. If HoYoverse shows cooperative mechanics creating situations Elden Ring never had – like one player caught by the boss while three others must execute a rescue combo – the story will turn. Conversely, if the gameplay is merely a copy of the single-player experience with prettier graphics, the backlash will be even more violent.

My six years of observing the Korean gaming and esports scene tell me: communities often forgive borrowing when the final product has quality. They do not forgive arrogance pretending they never saw any predecessor. HoYoverse should acknowledge Elden Ring as an inspiration while proving Nodusfall has a reason to exist on its own.

There is an interesting paradox in this story: the controversy itself is giving Nodusfall enormous attention that no advertising campaign could buy. Before the trailer, the game was virtually unknown to Western audiences. Now, hundreds of thousands of posts are discussing it. If HoYoverse knows how to leverage this, the outrage can become motivation to attract more attention – and when players actually get hands-on with the game, they will deliver their own verdict.

I still remember the sleepless Doha night, watching the counter-attack with the heart of a scriptwriter. Son Heung-min sprinted 60 meters to assist Hwang Hee-chan, sealing the 2-1 win over Portugal. Watching that match, I learned something: the greatest moments in sports, and in gaming, never start from copying. They start from understanding a game – a match – so deeply that you can do things no one has done before.

Nodusfall could be a worthy game, or it could be a disappointment. But the story it is creating in this industry – the story of a Chinese giant daring to enter the playground of a Japanese giant – deserves to be told fairly. And fairness means waiting until the game is actually released, not judging based on 2 minutes and 47 seconds of a trailer.

Between esports and football, I hear the same heartbeat of fans. It is the heartbeat of people who love something so much they are willing to protect it. But true love is not about defending the fortress; it is about expanding the territory. If Nodusfall launches and makes someone say 'I never played Elden Ring, but I like this one,' then to me, that is the greatest success HoYoverse could achieve.