Honkai Impact 3rd's New Hammer Character Accused of 1:1 Copying Punishing Gray Raven's Karenina — Even the "Bad Design" Got Cloned, Community Goes Full Mockery Mode

They even cloned the design that PGR players themselves called trash — miHoYo really copied someone else's homework and got the wrong answer.

The action design of Honkai Impact 3rd's upcoming 2.0 character has stirred up quite a controversy in the community. A player uploaded a side-by-side comparison video on Bilibili, frame-by-frame matching the new character's moveset against Karenina from Punishing: Gray Raven (PGR), accusing miHoYo's art team of doing a near-1:1 clone of Kuro Games' work. The original poster opened with a bang: "Wait, isn't this literally our PGR Karenina?"

The OP zeroed in on two key animations. First: the aerial vertical hammer spin — the character swings a jet-powered hammer overhead, spins mid-air, bounces off the ground, then spins again. According to the analysis, this animation traces its roots back to Nero's Red Queen sword combos in Capcom's Devil May Cry, but PGR adapted it for a jet-hammer weapon. Crucially, this exact move had already been widely criticized by PGR's own playerbase for feeling "uncoordinated" and being a textbook example of bad action design. Yet miHoYo's new character uses the same weapon and apparently copied the animation wholesale — clunky parts included.

The second accused move is the "hammer-step dash" — a two-part combo where the character kicks sideways off the hammer shaft, then stomps onto the hammer itself for a jet-powered charge. The OP claims this combo is an original creation by Kuro Games for PGR, and was once again replicated nearly identically. The OP also made a pointed observation: jet-hammers aren't exactly a common weapon archetype in gaming. Any competent action designer would have known that a competitor had already made a character with the exact same weapon.

But the rabbit hole goes deeper. A commenter added: "Fun fact — the previous character's yo-yo moveset was also a 1:1 clone of another game's action design. 2.0 really going back to its roots, huh?" — suggesting that Honkai Impact 3rd 2.0 has already had at least two instances of alleged "homage" to competitors' work.

The comment section became a full-on roast session, with users deploying sarcasm and memes at maximum intensity. One top-voted reply read: "Holy shit, Kuro Games actually invented a cross-temporal exhaust-fume respirator — peak content right there." Another quipped: "It must be Kuro maliciously time-traveling to the future to steal Honkai 2's design docs!" And someone cut straight through with: "A dog biting people isn't really news." The term "尾气厂" (exhaust-fume factory) is community slang used to mock miHoYo for always trailing behind competitors, metaphorically "inhaling their fumes."

Of course, not everyone was riding the hate train. Some pointed out the shared DNA: "Fun fact — both PGR and Honkai 3 share the same daddy: Capcom." Both games have drawn inspiration from Devil May Cry to varying degrees, though the general consensus is that "PGR has been much more original in recent years." Others questioned the quality of the evidence, noting that simply playing two PV clips back-to-back isn't exactly a rigorous comparison — requesting proper side-by-side frame-synced analysis. And a few speculated this could be intentional controversy marketing: "I've seen enough miHoYo drama — at this point, these 'plagiarism' accusations feel like part of their black-red marketing strategy."

As of this writing, neither miHoYo nor Kuro Games has issued any official statement regarding the controversy. With Honkai Impact 3rd 2.0 currently in its promotional push, it remains to be seen whether this design plagiarism storm will impact player reception of the new character.