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. …