Nodusfall: An Elden Ring Clone or a Different Gambit?

Elden Ring has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. That is why HoYoverse – the giant of the anime gacha game genre – suddenly pivoted to dark fantasy. The moment the Nodusfall trailer dropped, the community erupted. In the first round of the debate, players placed a white-winged character next to Malenia, a white-haired girl next to Melina, and called it a 'rip-off'. This is not merely about one game resembling another; it is a story about genre identity and the position of a studio with money but no pedigree in dark action RPGs. Context matters: HoYoverse owns Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, titles generating billions of USD annually from the gacha model. Moving to realistic graphics is a strategic bet, not a small experiment. FromSoftware's Elden Ring established a design language: a dark open world, punishing combat, and lore hidden in item descriptions. That language creates pressure. Any game with a similar tone, setting, or camera angle is placed on the community's scale. But slow down. From a data standpoint, what the community is comparing are static trailer images. No official gameplay footage has been released. Calling Nodusfall a 'copycat' at this stage lacks basic evidence. Legally, there is a clear line: game mechanics – such as difficult combat or dark fantasy settings – are not protected by copyright law. Only specific expressions, like identical character designs or directly copied art assets, can be challenged. The public comparison is still at the 'evocative' level, not 'verbatim copying'. What makes Nodusfall different is its gameplay structure: co-op boss hunting with up to four players. This pulls the game closer to Monster Hunter than to Elden Ring. Cooperative play changes the rhythm of combat, team organization, and monster design. If so, Nodusfall is not an Elden Ring clone; it merely borrows a familiar look to sell a different experience. A part of the community already recognizes this, calling the game 'Elden Ring meets Monster Hunter'. That is the window for HoYoverse to shift the narrative. I may be too optimistic. If the final gameplay is not different enough, the current backlash will return twice as hard. The real question is: why did HoYoverse release a trailer with such easily comparable images? Perhaps the intent was to spark controversy, or perhaps the dev team has come a long way and believes the difference will speak for itself when gameplay arrives. Gaming history shows that a game labelled a 'clone' at the trailer stage can still forge its own identity if the actual game is convincing. In the end, the Nodusfall controversy will only be settled when the first gameplay is shown. If HoYoverse demonstrates four players fighting a boss together in a cooperative rhythm, the story shifts from 'copy' to 'variation'. If not, today's accusations become prophecy. Paper giants never bleed, but when the community already holds a knife, a single small cut is enough to reveal the cotton inside.