When it comes to having something new, it’s not going to be entirely original. Even phones are simply just pocket-sized computers—but that doesn’t necessarily make them bad by any stretch. We see this in the entertainment industry as well, especially of things that reside in the same genre. When you think of CSI, you might think of NCIS. When you think of Smite, you might think League of Legends. However, while these comparisons consist of similar features, foundations or any combination of other details, they’re still have some similarity to them. However, the game I’m talking about today is so similar to the popular release of Overwatch, they’re nearly the same game—except that one of them comes at the cost of Free 99. I present to you, Paladins.

Just like Overwatch, Paladins is a colorful, first-person shooter with distinctive characters that shares also shares a gameplay foundation of Team Fortress 2, just like Overwatch. While Team Fortress 2 had tangible objective gamemodes like Control Point and Capture Flag, it wasn’t as team-oriented and could be enjoyed playing without friends, like Call of Duty. However, both Overwatch and Paladins are team-based about objective modes—the more teammates that push the payload at once, the faster it moves. Paladins does, however, have a greater diversity of maps and not to mention, better map design for either gamemode available. Payload plays exactly like Escort from Overwatch, where one team pushes a cart from their own base to the enemy base under a certain time limit. Even Siege is essentially a combination of Escort and Assault, the latter of which consists of capturing areas of the map to earn points. On top of which, both games have a dedicated competitive playlist with ELO ranking systems. However, not only are the game types and predecessor the same, but so are the characters in both games.

In both games, you can choose specific characters to play throughout the match, all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. You have slow, yet bulky characters, fast, yet brittle characters and anything in between. Not only does every character have a main attack, a secondary attack and two abilities (more or less) in both games, but also use Ultimate Abilties in both games, where they unlock their greatest potential to either aid their team or demolish the enemy team. Here is a brief list of what Paladins characters are similar to respective Overwatch characters.

• Viktor and Soldier 76: Both use an assault rifle and have a sprint ability, a very easy and forgiving starting character—especially for people that are familiar with Call of Duty.
• Drogoz and Pharah: Both have flight capabilities and shoot explosives—constantly raining death from above.
• Ruckus and Bastion: Sluggish, but beefy mobile turrets. Even their ultimate abilities are practically identical, where they fire faster and do increased damage for a limited time.
• Sha Lin and Hanzo: Archers that do high damage from afar. They function like snipers, but have a higher skill cap at the cost of versatility.
• Kinessa and Widowmaker: Actual snipers. Even better, they both have an alternative fire mode that lets their weapon act as a rifle for close-range encounters. Near clones of each other.
• Maeve and Genji: High damage-per-second (DPS) characters that are frail, mostly seen sticking to side lines and flanks.

Again, this is just a brief list. There are even more champions in Paladins are nearly identical to Overwatch heroes. In addition, their similarities don’t stop there. Both games have introduced loot systems, where you can obtain new skins for characters—on top of the option to purchase them with real currency, should you choose to not earn more by regular gameplay.

Aside from characteristic differences in names of heroes, maps and the name of the game, they’re definitely related in several ways. But let me disclaim that this is not meant to be biased towards either game. They’re so similar, that your opinion about either game is most likely going to be the same for the other. The biggest differences between them is that Overwatch has detailed lore about its universe, including each individual character having their own backstories, while Paladins is free-to-play on Steam (convenient for anyone that doesn’t have $40 to buy it on PC, or $60 to buy it on console.)