Moonlighter studio won't host a public playtest of its next game due to rampant AI-led cloning: 'We know we're not the only developers feeling this way'

The studio behind the Moonlighter series has announced it will no longer host a public playtest for its forthcoming roguelike due to fears it will be "reverse-engineered, cloned and published". The move comes as a surge in rapidly vibe coded clones floods Steam, Roblox and mobile app stores in the aftermath of Claude Opus 5.5.

"With launch still months away, sharing a build with tens of thousands of players feels like too big a risk," Digital Sun Games' marketing manager Israel Mallén told PC Gamer. The game under discussion is ReVamp, a "tower defensevania" roguelike due for release in March 2027.

"We know we're not the only developers feeling this way, and the more this is talked about, the more likely platforms are to step in."

In its public announcement Digital Sun Games was fairly blunt. "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."

Last week the studio behind Drunken Goddess Reflux canceled plans to roll out a public demo for Steam Next Fest due to similar fears. "We're concerned the demo's content could be used to quickly imitate or replicate the game's presentation and gameplay with AI or other tools, and that such works could be released before launch," a spokesperson for the studio wrote.

Opus 5.5 has proven hugely disruptive to the games industry. It has aided several high profile game decompiles, helped jailbreak the PS5, led Xbox to announce its own AI-centric Xbox Labs, and made developing quickfire clones extremely easy. It's likely why this month's Steam Next Fest has over 8,000 demos, up from around 4,000 in June.

As I wrote yesterday, the speed at which clones can now be turned around is mind-boggling, and will have (is already having) huge ramifications for indie game development and marketing. When the creator of incremental punching game Escape the Walls published footage of their game on X, it was only ten days before at least seven clones were available on Roblox, and at least one on Steam.