The Rising Era of the Multi-Clone
I'm defining a new word to describe a trending type of game I've been seeing in video game development. It's called a **multi-clone**. A multi-clone is a game where its gameplay is primarily cloned from multiple sources. These often become one big mega-sized mashup.
Let's recall what a clone is in the context of video games. A clone is a game that imitates another game, trying to replicate its style of gameplay. There might be some differences, but they're usually pretty close to what their inspiration is. For example, Five Nights at Candy's is a clone of Five Nights at Freddy's. It copies the gameplay and style completely, but with legally distinct characters. It may add some minor new elements or have some other differences, but at it's core it copies the original to provide the same gameplay experience.
Lately there's been a rise in games that copy not just one game, but copy and combine multiple of these inspirations into one game. For example, a game like Palworld can be described as literally Ark + Rust + Satisfactory + Breath of the Wild + Red Dead Redemption + Pokémon. That's a multi-clone.
When referring to a multi-clone, you can call it a multi-clone directly, or include reference to the cloned games before as in this example: "Palworld is an Ark + Rust + Satisfactory + Breath of the Wild + Red Dead Redemption + Pokémon multi-clone."
A multi-clone is distinct from a genre mashup. They don't just combine gameplay elements from different genres to create a new concept. They instead lift the feel and style of other existing games and mash those together.
For example, Crypt of the Necrodancer is a genre mashup that combines rogue-likes and rhythm games. It does it in an original way, coming up with carefully considered ways of combining the elements of each genre. It does not literally take one existing game from each genre and copy-paste the gameplay together.
A multi-clone can have original writing, settings, characters, tone, etc. What's being cloned are the gameplay elements. Copying how lock-picking works from Fallout/Skyrim, how climbing works from Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption's wanted system, and so on.
Kannagi Usagi is a clone of Sekiro not because they're both in the genre of action combat, but because it directly copies the mechanics such as how combat works, move-sets, and boss attack patterns. The change to an anime girl aesthetic does not make the gameplay any less of a copy. The same idea can be applied to multi-clones. Cloning multiple things does not make it less of a clone.
One of my most hated journalist tropes is when they describe something as "X meets Y" when what they really mean is "there's a passing surface level similarity between these two elements which I do not understand well enough to give a nuanced description of and instead pluck out something that's currently popular to grab attention". That's not what's happening when we describe a multi-clone. In the case of a multi-clone, the cloned elements are the majority of the game. It actually is correct to refer to them as "X + Y + Z".
I don't believe the idea of a multi-clone should be inherently derogatory.
Clones, like Tetris clones, can help liberate the experience to a new audience and even deliver better results than the owning company can. Jstris, Nullpomino, and Falling Lightblocks remain my favorite versions of Tetris despite not being official.
So too can multi-clones deliver on ideas that would otherwise not get made. Palia may not have much original gameplay to it, but it combines a bunch of existing types of the more relaxed, casual "cozy" games together into a social package, making it easier for friends to find a niche they can enjoy and play together in the same world. On top of that, it provides original characters and story, so the game can appeal to people who have finished the types of games it copies and are looking for more. (No one could honestly say Auni is a Blathers clone just because he collects bugs.)
Some developers definitely will use multi-clones as a means to be lazy and skip doing any real game design themselves. But that will happen in any genre, any field, regardless. This should not mean the whole idea is without value, but I do believe it will be more prone to it, just as clones are.
There is skill required to accurately replicate existing games. The ability to do so is often driven by a love and passion for those games. This is a quality that studios will want from their developers so they can continue to deliver a game of the same style. It's the same as how artists looking to work at Warner Brothers on Looney Tunes should be able to draw Bugs Bunny accurately in their style. To do that, they need to practice replicating their style, and they need an environment to refine those skills. If they don't get that job at Warner Brothers, it's perfectly fine for the artist to take the skills they learned and use it elsewhere.
I speculate that we are seeing this trend now in recent years due to the increased ease of access to high quality game development tools. Game engines like Unity and Unreal are hugely popular, used by everyone from the big studios to the little indie devs. They've been out long enough that the environment has matured to a point that there's people from everywhere who can try their hand at almost anything they'd like in it. When everyone has access to the same tools, it becomes easier to copy each other. Even when not using the same tools, these tools are so powerful that they can quite accurately emulate other tools.
New developers often want to make something that's like their favorite games, or even *is* their favorite games, and now they have the means to do so. I remember when growing up, a lot of people thought it would be great if it was possible to combine their favorite games, and now that those people are old enough to make their own games, we are starting to see that happen.
Overall, it's a positive thing that more people have access to a means to express themselves creatively. Developers don't need to re-invent the wheel for every game by building a new game engine from scratch. Nor do they need to re-invent game mechanics from scratch every time. Creating a good multi-clone still requires game design skill to choose what elements to combine into a proper cohesive experience.
The multi-clone will be a trend, like many other game development trends, and it will eventually pass. It won't truly ever go away completely, but the frequency will be reduced. There will always be a need for game design that creates original experiences. Rehashing the same ones will only be able to last so long before people get bored with it. I believe that even during this era, the developers who can continue to deliver fresh experiences will continue to be the favorites.
/gemlog/