Bad cover version

When Picasso said ‘great artists steal’, he wasn’t telling his peers and colleagues to abandon their canvas and reach for the tracing paper. Whatever the artform, good ideas will always spread, yet if you’re going to borrow from someone else, you should probably try to be subtle about it. There’s a profound difference between wearing your influences on your sleeve, and simply tearing your inspiration’s arm off.

Heading this month’s Play section is Just Cause 4 (p104), the latest in a series that’s all about physics and the carnage they can cause. Developer Avalanche knows a good idea when it sees it, and Metal Gear Solid V’s Fulton balloon is a perfect conceptual fit for Just Cause’s brand of explosive slapstick. It’s a welcome addition, and a necessary one for a series that’s beginning to feel a little tired. Most games slot neatly into genres, meaning a certain amount of magpieing is inevitable. Mutant Year Zero (p116) may be based on a tabletop game, but as a videogame it is naturally inspired by XCOM. Beat Saber (p120) is a VR music game about cutting things with motion controllers, and so recalls the likes of Thumper, DDR, Skyward Sword and even Fruit Ninja.

The idea, then, is to draw inspiration from elsewhere and use it to make your own work better. Yet this is a delicate balance. Be too brazen about it and you’ll only end up inviting the obvious comparison, and if your game isn’t good enough, you’ll suffer for it.

Gwyn only knows, we love Hidetaka Miyazaki’s work as much as anyone. But this month both Ashen (p108) and Darksiders III (p112) arrive in Souls clothes, and their pilfering only amplifies the relative chasm in quality between them and the games to which they pay homage. We love a good remix, don’t get us wrong. But we’re over tribute acts.