
Respawn Entertainment and EA, developer and publisher behind the popular battle royale Apex Legends, have been accused of ripping off a character from upcoming indie shooter, BulletVille.
Apex Legends, which could be launching on Switch as soon as next month, is set to introduce new character Fuse as part of its eighth season on 2nd February. NOWWA, the team behind BulletVille, says that it has found the character to be "quite familiar", noting his "eyepatch, biker attire, 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 characteristic grey stripe of hair."
The team points out that Hunter, a character from BulletVille, has been public for nearly two years, and that Apex Legends' Fuse "seems to share a lot of similarities" with its own design. The accusations go further, as NOWWA explains that BulletVille playtests were held with EA in October and November 2020 – something it says "reinforces the theory of a potential ‘inspiration’."
NOWWA shared the following statement on the matter to Nintendo Life, attaching an image of the two characters side-by-side:
“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.”

"Hunter can count on two weapons: a pistol and rocket launcher. Guess what Fuse’s ultimate ability is?" NOWWA says. "A rocket launcher."
We've reached out to EA's Apex Legends PR team for comment and will update this story if we receive a response.
Comments 52
Generic video game character is generic.
You can't invent generic characters, and it's hard to steal from a developer you've never heard of.
both seem generic AF
He has an eyepatch and a rocket launcher, in conclusion that is why we are sueing Marvel for Nick Fury
They don't look identical to me in the slightest.
Well, their point on them being called on ripping off actually makes sense
Yeahhhh. Good luck I suppose. I think you’ll need lots of it.
They should go after Blizzard too since they too have a character that has an eyepatch and prosthetic limb and another that uses a rocket launcher and pistol. It's unbelievable that people can't realize that Hunter is literally the only character in existence who can have those
To be fair they are both so generic looking I have no problem believing it isn't a copy and rather just an example of Respawn running out of ideas.
I dont care about either game, but it does look like respawn/ea "ripped them off".
There are so many different ways you could design a biker character, but they landed on such a strikingly similar design as these bulletville guys.
Well ... every character I drew in the comics that I made as a child looked like this. So both need to pay me.
@Bobb Both designs aren't exactly unique enough to be considered "ripped off"
@Entrr_userna
"eyepatch, biker attire, 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 characteristic grey stripe of hair."me
I began my career in animation as a character designer, for 6 years ( currently a board artist). I could come up with a dozen variations ( rough pre designs) of a biker design in a day or two that were vastly different from one another. Yet these guys look the same, in body build, silhouette, attitude, etc.
@Fighter_Hayabusa Like I said previously, those are hardly unique enough to be considered a knock-off. Sure they may share a lot of similarities in regards to appearance characteristics, but they're pretty minor honestly.
These characters are designed many months in advance anyway
Actually, yeah, there are quite a few "coincidental" similarities there: The hair style, mustache/beard, eye patch, skull on belt, exaggeratedly big chunky bullets, bionic arm, the necklace, the leather jacket with that particular style of collar, the red and black/grey costume theme, etc.
Edit: Ooops, I see they've already listed all that stuff. So, yeah . . .
I think this is justified. These are fairly generic character designs, but the similarities start to pile up to a point where I don't think it's just a coincidence.
@RedHot08 Apex Legends characters take a while to be developed so it's not likely they borrowed a design from NOWWA in the short amount of time they could even see the character. Not like they could have a reason to do so anyway.
Looks like a mashup of all stupid generic sci-fi characters
Wait.... what's a rocket launcher?
@Entrr_username Sure, I agree. But they ARE at disadvantage being a small studio if it happens at all.
I don't think they are after compensation, as it is a hard sell "my unreleased character was planned years before this character that just released" even if it's true
C’mon, they added a soul-patch - Totally different characters now.
Small company wants to claim against big company.... please don't fuel those greedy lawyers anymore!
Plus they both look like a character from timeslpitters, and many many other games.
@JustMe it’s sad and you are right.
I'll give them credit for mentioning the fact they had EA involved with the playtests (even though they never said how involved EA was), but how likely is it that the saw the Hunter character and then whipped up the "knock-off" from scratch shortly after in time? Especially when they had to release an entirely different character after the playtests.
Laughable accusation. Bulletville should get fined for harassment.
Nah, it's just a stereotype.
Bit of a stretch if you ask me 🤣
Wait!? The generic Punisher meets Solid Snake wannabe looks like somebody else's generic Punisher meets Solid Snake wannabe?
They should BOTH be ashamed for having such boring generic characters. Can we all get together and sue both companies for that?
@NorseGamerTommy They didn't say they look identical, they said they have familiar design elements as each other which is true even if everybody is saying it's a stereotype. I don't really understand how a metal eye patch and arm are stereotypical for a biker, and while some of the other elements could be stereotypical you don't get all the list stereotypically in 1 person.
Honestly I don’t know how people here can sit and say they don’t look the same? Sure a lot of the elements are standard generi game man, but it’s the combination. Here try this:
I’ve invented a new character. It’s a short and portly man. He wears dungarees over a jumper and has a red cap with the letter N on it. He wears brown work boots and has a bristly moustache. He has a special ability where he can fire fireballs from his hands when activated with the right power-up.
Doesn’t sound original does it? Sounds like I ripped off an existing character, right? But they’re also elements that could make up a generic male character in a game roster, and yet they’re so clearly not a generic man are they?
Now look at those two images and see what they both have:
Brown styled hair with a prominent grey steak at the front and a moustache. A leather jacket with a popped collar and thin necklace/pendant. One bionic arm. A skull on their belt buckle. A cybernetic eye patch. A fingerless glove. A rocket launcher special ability.
And that’s listing the obvious, there’s plenty more subtle design queues mirrored in them both. Honestly they look like two concepts of the same character and the shared gameplay mechanic is just the final nail.
what about graves from league
Silly, silly silly. Nothing is new under the sun.
Never heard of RESPAWN or NOWWA. Never played these games. I've heard of APEX.
...I mean, you wouldn't need them both in Smash Bros, would you--unless they were echo fighters?
This is like Cobb performed Inception by putting an illustration of "hunter" from RESPAWN into a mind-vault of the designers at NOWWA.
Reminds me of what Disney and Dreamworks taught us about corporate espionage. Or how Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera is just the riff from Pink Floyd's Echoes in a fancier package.
Occam's razor says this was a ripoff. APEX has a great character illustration team apparently, but yeah, this looks like a ripoff.
This is STUPID 😂😂 early designs and leaks if Fuse dropped close to a year ago..... Respond literally works on these characters for months or years before they release.
The leak first of horizon came out back in like season 4 and she was a season 7 release 😂
Does this game also have a stacked brunette in a tank top, boots, and booty shorts with weapon holsters on her thighs? Oh, and an armband. Cause that would also be really original.
Here's some future insight, Don't let EA playtest your games if you want to keep your content "original" or just plain keep your content YOUR content. But both characters are generic af, kinda reminds me of one of the characters from Borderlands. Maybe there is a lawsuit there? Either way, the similarities are striking, I mean they both look like d-bags that have a 10-cent smile that has a little shimmer effect on it when they win a round.
I'm just glad every internet lawyer already settled this case.
Let's not forget about all of the really cool original (yet inspired, like many others) characters in Apex Legends. I think they've really done a good job of creating a likable roster.
I don't know about this guy though lol like everyone is saying, seems kinda generic and forgettable
The character looks similar but hardly a rip off.
Besides that character type is so generic.
Maybe Ea trid to ripe of a smaller indie studio whithout getting cought.
Oh no, he has a pistol in his render, and he looks ever so slightly like this one generic looking character, lets accuse EA and Respawn of plagiarism.
you're a slow af if you don't come to the rational conclusion that an artist at respawn ripped off this character. They aren't generic. Please, find me another of these generic characters. You know, one with a: douchey hipster haircut/mustache, eyepatch, bionic arm, single handed firearm, slim fit collared leather jacket, shell casing belt, skull belt buckle, islander necklace and ***** eating grin. There should be at least a few more with how generic and common he is.
As @Ogbert mentiond here yeah thay are somewhat generic but there are Waaay to menny similarly between these two to just be coincidental plus you have the timing aswell..
Imagen if it was your charicter for a bit... something you have pored your time and energy into just to have a FAR bigger game/company to just pinch it... itd suck..
Nothing like the big company’s stealing the little guys ideas and getting away with it... I mean Disney’s been doing it for decades.
Are any of these two dudes original enough to have been stolen from anywhere?
Sir Hammerlock of Borderlands accuses both...
I do believe the similarities are so vast that it would hold up in court. If anyone actually read the bible long list of similarities instead of just looking at the picture and then posting how much they dislike both characters - they would see this too. The opportunity was there to copy the ip. I'm sure they have enough witnesses and digital time stamps of their work as well. I don't see why any of you think this wouldn't hold up in court.
I saw a PC Gamer article about this that mentioned that one of the characters in BulletVille shares some characteristics to Mercy from Overwatch. With this in mind, It's clear that NOWWA is only doing this for publicity.
@Entrr_username A very small amount of research disproves this. Mercy is a human with permanent robot wings with holographic feathers. She focuses on healing though has a hand pistol. Has a halo and has a predominantly white and gold colour scheme. The Bulletville character in question is called 'Angel' and is a full robot from space, she has a sniper rifle, a grey and blue colour scheme, and fully robot wings that only appear when her special is activated.
Sure there are elements that are similar, and the whole game has taken inspiration from Overwatch that's very clear (it's the defining game of that genre, of course they would). But it's a stretch to say that character is a clone of Mercy when they don't look or play the same, or appear to have the same type of personality. Unlike these two in the article where they look similar, share the same gameplay and are presented as having a similar personality.
Imagine if borderlands made the same character
Ok guys.. hear me out... this guy is just scout from tf2 but better. Eh? Eh?
All in jokes, the weapons part is just like saying “cAll oF dUtY mAdE a rOckeT lAunCher sO they NeEd t0 suE litErAlLy eVerY gAmE tHaT hAs oNe!!!!!”
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