If you have seen the Steam page for Tank Battlegrounds, you might say it looks a little bit familiar. Well, it actually is – that is because it is a shameless rip-off of Battlefield 1942. The “first-person shooting game set in World War II” description already says it all.
First off, the game’s official trailer looks exactly the same as Battlefield 1942’s. The only catch is that it is cut short in an attempt to hide the logo from players. However, the screenshots are the same, and the description itself shamelessly refers to Battlefield 1942 instead of Tank Battlegrounds.
There is no doubt that someone is trying to use DICE's game to sell the fraudulent title. Given the evidence, it is interesting to see why Steam allowed it in the first place.
Thanks to some people with eagle eyes on the Steam subreddit, Tank Battlegrounds was discovered to be made available on the Steam store just a few days ago. What is more, it is slated for an official release on May 30.
The game is being developed by a Chinese studio called 自由合伙人, which translates to “Free Partner.” Tank Battlegrounds is the only game the studio has developed so far, and one of its developers has no Steam activity whatsoever. The developer did post some threads in the game’s Steam forums, though.
The game is really ripping off Battlefield 1942, and the description tells you why: “In order to win, Battlefield 1942 pays more attention to teamwork.” Clearly, the developer copied the description and just forgot to edit it. Real work there, huh?
It is also not clear if Free Partner’s game is an actual title. A quick reverse image search reveals that screenshots are actually original. It seems the developers did take these images themselves. It could be that Tank Battlegrounds is a perfect imitation, or the studio just wants to sell Battlefield 1942, although the latter seems to be very unlikely.
The fact that Tank Battlegrounds got approved by Steam and stayed there for almost a year is already troubling. With its way of promoting the game, anyone can see it is illegal.
