Update: Well, the arrival of The Exit 8 on PS5 and PS4 has clearly had an impact. As reported in the original article below, the PS Store was already home to a title called The Exit 9 — a blatant ripoff of The Exit 8, which was quite clearly designed to try and fool users into thinking that it was related to the horror-tinged walking sim.
Just 24 hours since The Exit 8 dropped, The Exit 9 technically no longer exists on Sony's marketplace. It's now titled Exit 9 Metro, and it's even ditched the yellow logo.
It's unclear whether Sony, publisher PLAYISM, or developer KOTAKE CREATE has had to step in, but at least the plagiarism isn't quite so obvious anymore. Hopefully these changes will result in less confusion for potential buyers.
Original Story: The Exit 8 has just released on PS5 and PS4, but if you go looking for it on the PS Store, you'll likely be greeted with another game called The Exit 9. But despite both games sporting almost the exact same logo and colour scheme, The Exit 9 has nothing to do with the creepy, highly rated walking sim that is The Exit 8.
The Exit 9 is essentially a ripoff. It was released onto the PS Store back in January, just a couple of months after The Exit 8 had made its debut on PC via Steam. The Exit 9 is quite clearly trying to trick people into thinking that it's the same thing — or at least that it's related in some way.
Interestingly, PS5 players seem to have caught on to the ploy. The Exit 9 currently has a user rating of 1.90/5, based on 322 reviews. A quick Google search also reveals numerous threads across Reddit and Steam, all of which point out just how much of a blatant ripoff The Exit 9 is.
Now that The Exit 8 has officially released on PS5, it'll be interesting to see if PlayStation actually does anything about The Exit 9. The simple fact that both games immediately show up upon searching (with 9 actually showing up before 8 depending on what you type) isn't great for The Exit 8 developer KOTAKE CREATE — and you can bet that plenty of people will have already been fooled into thinking The Exit 9 is related to the real deal.
So, who's behind The Exit 9 in the first place? Well, on the PS Store, it's credited to Gaming Dev SRL — a company that's released a number titles on Sony's digital marketplace. And guess what? All of them seem to be heavily based on existing games.
It's no secret that the PS Store has a problem with shovelware — just go ahead and search 'simulator', and you'll be met with an ungodly number of asset-flipped titles, complete with AI generated key art. It's a mess, but this kind of thing starts to become a real problem when original games like The Exit 8 are being buried under shameless copycats.