Moonlighter studio Digital Sun moves ReVamp's first playtest to Discord, citing fears of AI cloning

Digital Sun says a public Steam playtest of its Dracula tower defence game felt too risky after reports of games cloned before launch. The test moves to Discord from 29 October; release stays March...

AI-drafted from 2 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

Digital Sun, the studio behind Moonlighter and Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, has pulled back from a public Steam playtest for its next game, ReVamp. In a post on the game's Steam page on 19 October, the studio said it had decided to start with “something more contained on our Discord” and open the public playtest later.

The reason it gives is cloning. The studio says it has been concerned “by recent news of games being reverse-engineered, cloned and published before the original is even out,” and adds: “With launch still months away, sharing a build with tens of thousands of players felt like too big a risk for ReVamp.”

What changes for players

The dates mostly hold. The playtest still starts on 29 October, now on Discord, with access granted in waves; players who want in are pointed to the studio's server and its Playtesting role. Digital Sun says it hopes to open the public playtest around January, and apologises to everyone who requested access through Steam. ReVamp's release is unaffected and stays on 25 March 2027 the date the studio announced on 8 October.

ReVamp is what the studio calls a Tower Defensevania: you play Dracula, build your castle room by room, fill it with monsters and step into fights yourself when the mortals get through.

Not the only one

Game Developer ties the decision to a wider worry among indie studios that demos, trailers and screenshots are being fed into generative AI tools to rebuild a game's core features. It reports that Alliance Arts and Who's You cancelled the Steam Next Fest demo for Drunken Goddess Reflux the day before, citing similar concerns, and notes that game mechanics get little protection under copyright.

Digital Sun closes on the cost to small studios. “We'd also love to see platforms keep strengthening protections for original work, so studios of every size can keep sharing their games early,” the post says. “For indie games, that's how we get seen and find the fans who keep us going.”

Sources

• About the ReVamp playtest (Steam)
• Moonlighter developer delays public playtest of next game over concerns of AI cloning (Game Developer)

Image: Digital Sun