The reveal of Nodusfall, Hoyoverse's Monster Hunter-like co-op action game, has sparked comparisons to FromSoftware games like Elden Ring, and it's taking me right back to the earliest days of Genshin Impact, when Hoyoverse was still more widely known as miHoYo.
After years of anime games in seemingly every genre, Hoyoverse has dipped into more realistic fantasy territory with Nodusfall, and a few early boss designs may feel familiar if you've spent the past decade steeping in FromSoftware's tea.
Folks have drawn up unfavorable side-by-side comparisons between some of the apparent bosses in Nodusfall and various FromSoftware designs. (Some people also took a wrong turn and mistakenly folded in Tides of Annihilation, which is not a Hoyo game.)
"New HoYo game literally rips off FromSoft's aesthetics almost to perfection," argues one post in – surprise – the FromSoftware subreddit.
"I thought this was the rumoured pirate game," another says of the Nodusfall reveal, referring to the pirate-themed FromSoftware game rumored to be in development alongside The Duskbloods. "Same. I was glued to the stream then boom hoyoverse," reads a reply.
Some shots do raise an eyebrow. When Nodusfall first debuted during the Gamescom Opening Night Live show, I noticed similarities in one shot of a valkyrie flaring her crimson-tinged wings. You don't need to squint to see why people would see echoes of Malenia, Elden Ring's scarlet rot icon.
You might argue the same for Nodusfall's battle axe-wielding divine warrior, shown fighting alongside a giant lion – a similar motif to Elden Ring's Godfrey. Much the same goes for the dragoon-like boss elsewhere in the trailer, who smacks of Dark Souls 3's Nameless King, who reappeared in Elden Ring Nightreign.
Other comparisons being made online are much thinner, quickly devolving into what feels like defensive recency bias at best. Not Malenia feels pretty unquestionable, and Hoyo's reputation for generative AI use isn't helping it, but you'd struggle to find a modern work of fantasy that isn't digging around somebody's backyard – John R.R. Tolkien's, Dungeons & Dragons', or, especially in FromSoftware's case, Kentaro Miura's.
Let's not pretend FromSoftware invented or patented 'Guy with a fireball for a head' or 'Guy riding a dragon.' And frankly, FromSoftware lighting is so distinct that a single shot of hands in The Duskbloods' reveal was all I needed to clock the studio.
That being said, I have immensely enjoyed the resurrection of some old Elden Ring fan art that imagined FromSoftware's RPG as a Genshin-like gacha game with, horror of horrors, weapon banners. That said, Nodusfall is apparently not a traditional gacha game: PC Gamer reports that it won't have random pulls for characters, at least.
A lot of this chatter feels like the pushback Genshin Impact faced in 2020, with many players calling it a gacha clone of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, not just for its art style and open-world mechanics, but also for a few familiar shots from its own trailers. In 2023, Hoyoverse CEO Liu Wei said the Zelda comparisons took a toll on the studio's staff.
In 2020, in an interview with GamesRadar+, a Hoyo representative acknowledged the Breath of the Wild inspiration head-on. That quote has been fresh in my mind after Nodusfall's reveal.
"The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the most popular and respected titles in the industry, and one which our staff hold in high regard. In a post that our team circulated to players last year, we mentioned that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of our inspirations for creating Genshin Impact as an open-world action RPG. We will be the first to admit that there is a great gap between Genshin Impact and established titles like BOTW – this motivates us to keep improving Genshin Impact and to work towards closing that gap."
This week, Wei said Nodusfall is a very "un-miHoYo" type of game.
Everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026.
