Genshin Impact devs were distraught over Zelda plagiarism accusations

Breath of the Wild accusations

14 August 2023
by rawmeatcowboy 1
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Genshin Impact has been an absolutely huge success since launch, reaching millions and millions of players worldwide. It was a level of success the dev team was incredibly happy to see, especially considering how horrible they were feeling just a few months prior to launch.

You might remember the days when Genshin Impact was revealed. Many who saw the footage were quick to point out that it looked quite similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As a matter of fact, some found the game to be a bit too on the nose, and accused developer miHoYo of flat-out stealing from Nintendo’s franchise.

In an interview with CBR, miHoYo co-founder Liu “Dawei” Wei discussed how these accusations really hit the team hard, and caused morale to drop considerably during development. Wei went on to say that numerous staffers were crying, and others were trying to figure out what they did wrong and how all the complaints came to be. Wei responded to the team by saying this was an opportunity to prove themselves and show that Genshin Impact had much more to offer than just being a Breath of the Wild clone.

The rest is history, as they say. Genshin Impact released to critical and commercial success, and is still played by millions to this day. Now if miHoYo could only get that Switch port out the door…

[CBR]

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Comments (1)

ridleysaria

12M ago

I'm very much a fan and active player of Genshin Impact. There are similarities in visuals and traversal but it's a very different game from Breath of the Wild. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant.

At this point I'd be very surprised if that Switch port materializes. There's almost no point since Switch owners will have missed out on several years worth of limited time events. Perhaps it could be worth it for an existing Genshin Impact player like me if they implemented cross saves. I normally play on PS5 and can log into my account on mobile if necessary, but that's far from ideal. Switch wouldn't be as good as playing on PS5 but I'd prefer it over mobile for occasional on-the-go play. I doubt Sony would cooperate with a cross save system though.