Ever since its inception, Hi-Rez Studios has had to fend off accusations that Paladins: Champions of the Realm is an Overwatch ripoff, with the developer having staunchly claimed that the title is not a clone of Blizzard Entertainment's team-based shooter. Now, in an interesting turn of events that will bring further comparisons between the two, players of Hi-Rez's mobile version of the game recently noticed that a piece of background imagery for a promo of the title is actually a piece of art depicting Overwatch's Lijiang Tower.

As seen in the images below, the first one has Paladins' close-range specialist character Lex sporting a new skin called "Covert Ops", which gives him a form-fitting bodysuit and optical visor to give him an added sense of futuristic flair. When Lex and all of the Paladins-related branding is taken away from the image, though, it's easy to see in the second still that the promo simply blurred and covered up a piece of artwork for Overwatch's Lijiang Tower.

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According to a statement from Hi-Rez Studios, the usage of Overwatch assets in the marketing image for Paladins was due to poor management in regards to quality control on behalf of the company, as the art was "created by a[n] overseas partner studio for Paladins Strike and had not much in the way of oversight in its content creation by anyone internally at Hi-Rez." In order to rectify the situation, a spokesperson said that the developer "will be looking into this immediately."

All things considered, it's good to see Hi-Rez Studios owning up to the situation and responding so quickly after fans brought the piece of artwork to the company's attention. With this being the case, players likely won't see the promo used in any official capacity anymore in the future. This can certainly be seen as yet another instance of Hi-Rez listening intently to its fan base, as it recently removed loot boxes several months ago due to the items causing issues within the community.

Paladins: Champions of the Realm's mobile version, Paladins Strike, is available now on Android and iOS devices.

Source: Reddit