Apex Legends Season 8 is expected to release very soon, and to retain the hype, developer Respawn Entertainment recently revealed who the next Legend is going to be. Fuse is the upcoming new playable hero for Season 8, who has a distinct robotic arm and eyepatch, making him stand out from the rest of the options.
While many Apex Legends fans are looking forward to testing out Fuse as soon as Season 8 goes live, it appears that his introduction won’t be smooth sailing like the others, as his existence is already part of a controversy.
More specifically, an indie studio has accused Respawn Entertainment for copying one of its characters in order to create who we now know as Fuse. NOWWA is an indie team currently working on a third-person multiplayer hero shooter called BulletVille, and it claims that the character design of one of its characters, Hunter, was used by Respawn Entertainment for the creation of Fuse.
According to the small indie group, its upcoming game had playtests with publisher Electronic Arts last year in October and November. Not only that, the general public already knew about its character Hunter more or less two years ago. Speaking with Nintendo Life, NOWWA’s statement basically conveys the studio’s fear of being accused of copying Respawn Entertainment due to how similar both characters look.
NOWWA’s statement says, “We are happy that the Apex Legends team liked Hunter’s style to the point of wanting to recreate it in Apex Legends.” The studio goes on to say that it was even hoping that both studios will have a crossover of games someday. “Nonetheless, we are afraid that, as a small indie game producer whose game hasn’t been launched yet, we’ll be called a ripoff of Apex Legends, which is certainly not true.”
Asides from their physical appearances, another similarity between Fuse and Hunter is their weapon of choice. Namely, both characters utilize a weapon that works similarly to a rocket launcher.
As of this moment, Respawn Entertainment hasn’t made any comments regarding this accusation. It’s also worth noting that there hasn’t been any proof just yet as to whether Respawn Entertainment truly copied NOWWA’s Hunter to create Fuse. There’s a chance that this is all just some kind of coincidence, so bear that in mind.
That being said, it’s up to you to formulate your own opinions regarding this issue. Here’s what BulletVille’s Hunter looks like:
On the other hand, this is what Apex Legends’ Fuse looks like:
NOWWA’s fear of being called a character design thief is understandable, given how Apex Legends’ developer is a big name in the industry already, whereas NOWWA is just starting out. Besides, it’s fairly common for popular games to have copies. For instance, at the peak of their popularity, games like PUBG or Overwatch had a bunch of clones that started popping up.
It would be interesting to see how Respawn Entertainment will react to this, or if it will even acknowledge the issue at all. It would be difficult for NOWWA to prove that Respawn ripped off Hunter’s character design, especially since it’s a fairly common or generic design to begin with.
