We live in a world where there will always be people taking notes from others on how to do things well. If one person “sets a tone” for how things can go, then many other people will follow that tone so that they can make something potentially as good. That’s called “setting a trend,” and as long as you don’t emphatically rip them off by making a recreation of what they did, you’ll be fine. In gaming, that often happens with “clones” of certain titles. But with yesterday’s Xbox Games Showcase, the title Clockwork Revolution has a bit more going on than a “clone problem.”
The game focuses on a Steampunk world ruled by an evil dictator, and you are the one who can save everything by affecting the timeline. But doing so can make things worse, as the trailer points out at the end. Overall, it’s a unique-sounding title that could be a lot of fun. However, after the trailer came out, many people pointed out how similar it looked and felt to Bioshock Infinite and its trailers. In fact, one of the people who made those trailers, including the introductory one, went to Twitter and noted all the similarities between the two trailers and the game itself.
Not surprisingly, gamers also noted that Clockwork Revolution had “way too many” nods to its “predecessor,” and that made many people wonder what the heck was going on. Eventually, IGN reached out to Xbox for a thought on this, and they said:
“Any similarities are unintentional. Players will be able to fully customize their own main character in the game.”
That may be true, but it’s curious nonetheless. We can say that the story and gameplay of the title will be different than the fan-favorite game. Here’s the synopsis for the upcoming Steampunk epic:
“After stumbling across an incredible invention that allows you to travel into the past, you discover the city you call home — the vibrant steam-powered metropolis of Avalon — has been carefully crafted through the alteration of historical events.
By traveling back to key moments, your interactions and choices will have a butterfly effect on the deep, narrative-driven world and characters of Avalon, causing them to change and react in unprecedented ways.”
So do we have a case of “stealing” or merely “references?” At present, it seems like the latter. But hopefully, in the future, developers will be a bit wiser about how many “references” they put in about past titles.
