In the ruthless world of gaming where creativity is king, there’s little tolerance for copycats – especially for those that fail to meet the industry’s ever-rising standards. The latest example is Last Hope: Dead Zone Survival, a Nintendo Switch-exclusive budget game that’s no longer on the platform’s eShop after going viral for its stark similarity to The Last of Us, one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.
An uncanny resemblance to Naughty Dog’s acclaimed post-apocalyptic game earned it immediate notoriety online, which got worse after the game’s trailer featured its own Ellie-like character and a gruff father figure like Joel.
Naturally, this ignited a firestorm of criticism and negative reviews. The worst part is that players discovered that the game was plagued with bugs and its entirety was a pitiful 15 to 20 minutes long. Many dubbed it the worst game in recent years. As if this fall from grace wasn’t enough, Sony, evidently unimpressed, sprang into action, taking down the trailers and other promotional material for The Last Hope off to eh face of the internet as well as from the Nintendo Switch eShop in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
No official statements have been made by PlayStation, Nintendo, or V.G. Games – the developer behind the ill-fated title – thus, we can’t definitively conclude whether the purge was triggered by Sony’s copyright claims, self-preservation on Nintendo’s part, or a preemptive strike by the developers.
What we can say with certainty, however, is this incident highlights a glaring issue in the gaming industry. Unless the quality checks implemented by companies like Nintendo and Valve become comprehensive enough, digital stores will continue to be a dumping ground for subpar, imitative knock-offs of higher-quality games. Regrettably, such practice isn’t exclusive to Nintendo, as evidenced by a particular low-grade God of War clone found on the Xbox store as well as that Mario rip-off from a while back.
While there are obvious opportunities to create games resembling popular franchises for different platforms, The Last Hope and its unceremonious dismissal serve as a cautionary tale.
Copying a successful game is no easy feat, let alone a masterpiece like The Last of Us. And when such attempts turn into blatant rip-offs, companies like Sony are well within their rights to protect their intellectual property, which is exactly what Sony appears to have done in this case.
Despite this debacle, those who purchased the game prior to its removal can still play it, presenting a peculiar opportunity for these players to sell their Nintendo accounts on platforms like eBay. Interestingly, this worst-rated game may just become one of the rarest video games ever created.
As for The Last of Us, Naughty Dog is currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, there’s demand for a threequel. On the other hand, it might have just set the bar too high to the point that it wouldn’t make sense to revisit the series unless it’s absolutely sure that the next entry is going to be as good as the first two. Despite this reality, leakers claim that The Last of Us Part 3 is in development on top of the delayed multiplayer spin-off and the still-unconfirmed The Last of Us Part 2 re-release for the PC and the PlayStation 5.
The good news is that work on HBO’s The Last of Us is doing great if stalled due to the Hollywood strike. HBO will adapt the events of The Last of Us Part 2 across multiple seasons.
