AI Cloning Could Become the Biggest Threat to Video Game Playtests

Just over a week ago, during the Triple-i Initiative showcase, developer Digital Sun announced the long-awaited public playtest for its upcoming "Tower Defensevania" ReVamp. Now the developer is walking that back, instead offering a much smaller and more controlled playtest through its Discord beginning on Oct. 29. The reason? AI.

In a statement posted on the studio's X account, Digital Sun explained that "We've been concerned by recent news of games being reverse-engineered, cloned, and published before the original is even out. With launch still months away, a large public build of ReVamp felt like too big a risk." The developer is referring to an alarming trend that has popped up lately of old and upcoming games being effectively cloned with the assistance of AI tools and put online for all. That's a problem for any game, but it's especially a threat to an indie studio working on a new project.

While interested players can still attempt to get access to the Discord playtest, Digital Sun did not promise it will be able to accommodate demand. The studio did say that "We hope to open the public playtest around January." That would be just about two months and change before the game's slated release date of March 25. If the playtest does eventually go public, it will only be when Digital Sun feels like it can beat potential clones to market. The developer also pleads with platforms to "keep strengthening protections of original work."

This is a shame for Digital Sun, as the public playtest would help spread the word about ReVamp, but it's also a bummer for players as the game looks quite good. ReVamp flips the traditional Castlevania script by putting players in the shoes of Dracula and letting them shape his castle to protect against potential invaders. It's a unique pitch and the game's art style looks gorgeous, bearing some resemblance to the recently released Castlevania: Belmont's Curse in vibes.

What is going on with all these AI game clones?

It really does seem like all of a sudden, in the past couple of months, AI vibe-coded slop recreations of games have become the hot new thing. And by "hot" I do mean in the way that a steaming pile of crap is "hot." Maybe you've seen videos of people adding skateboarding to Call of Duty or Mario to Elden Ring. People also used AI to port the original Halo to browsers. These have been the result of Claude Opus 5.5 which was released in September and lets users reverse-engineer games. While the idea often seems nice to onlookers on social media, the games are largely not stable builds and may not actually be playable at all.

To make matters worse, companies like Xbox seem eager to embrace the new technology. Last week, as part of CEO Asha Sharma's ongoing reset of the company, Xbox announced the new Xbox Labs division that will "turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience." While AI wasn't explicitly mentioned, the announcement sent to employees sounds inspired by the AI slop fan projects. So far this technology, like most AI tools, has only been used to take other people's work and make it into something that would excite the worst teenager you know. That leaves studios like Digital Sun in a precarious position going forward.