Apex Legends developer accused of ripping off character design from indie game

Recently, Apex Legends showcased its new Legend character, who will be introduced in Season 8. Fuse is the next addition to the roster, an explosives-loving dude who rocks a sweet moustache. Apparently, not everyone is pleased with the design, as indie studio NOWWA feels the character looks a little too familiar.

NOWWA is developing a game called BulletVille, an indie shooter as you can probably guess by the name. It too features a character that rocks a rocket launcher, a skull belt, and some mean facial hair. NOWWA feels Fuse’s design is a little too close to Hunter from BulletVille, and that Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment might have borrowed from its design.

The indie developer has a bit of extra context, too. According to the team, BulletVille playtests were held with EA late last year, assumedly as a pitch to the publisher. NOWWA thinks this collaboration could have led to Respawn borrowing some design aspect’s from BulletVille‘s Hunter character. Admittedly, they do look quite alike, but we’re not entirely convinced it’s a rip off.

Left: BulletVille. Right: Apex Legends.

Some similarities

Regardless of what we think, NOWWA has reeled off all of Hunter and Fuse’s similarities. The team says, via email, there’s a match with the eye patch, biker outfit, skull belt, mechanical arm, moustache, belt of grenades, gloves, necklace, vest jacket with circular symbol on the back, leg holsters, red/grey colour scheme, and the grey stripe of hair.

The problem is NOWWA feels that BulletVille may be seen as copying Apex Legends, rather than the other way around. This could happen, as BulletVille hasn’t been released yet and it is from a smaller studio. The team is still hard at work on the game, set to launch out of beta this year. Here’s a statement from BulletVille developer NOWWA:

We are happy that the Apex Legends team liked Hunter’s style to the point of wanting to recreate it in Apex Legends – we were even hoping for an eventual crossover! 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.

For Apex Legends, Fuse and the rest of the Season 8 content goes live February 2, at least for now.