Star Wing Barely Had 48 Players on Steam Launch — Then Japan's EXVS World Champions Showed Up and Called It a Ripoff (While Having the Time of Their Lives)

A Chinese indie game launched on Steam with a peak of just 48 concurrent players on day one — then within days, that number exploded past 1,000. The twist? The influx wasn't casual gamers. It was former world champions and top-tier pros from Japan's Gundam EXVS competitive scene.

Star Wing (星之翼) hit Steam on April 29, marketing itself as a Gundam EXVS-style high-speed combat game. Thanks to its gameplay feel being far closer to the real deal than any other competitor, it quickly caught the attention of the Japanese EXVS community. Among those who jumped in were the Amamiya Brothers and GBH — former world champions and legendary competitive players.

The most viral moment came from a Japanese meme: players described Star Wing's moves as being 'more familiar than their parents' faces' (親の顔より覚えている招式) — a dead giveaway that the game basically lifted EXVS's moveset wholesale. Chinese players reacted with a mix of disbelief and excitement: 'I'm fighting GGGP world champions... for real?'

But this meme also ignited a debate. Some commenters called it a good sign — 'means the game is actually legit.' Others weren't having it: 'moves more familiar than your parents' faces — isn't that just code for straight-up copying?' One user pushed back, arguing that EXVS-style moves inherently look similar and it's hard to draw the line. But another commenter dropped screenshots showing that a popular Japanese content creator, Kaimonkey (火爆猴), literally used the word 'パクリ' (ripoff/copycat) to describe the game himself. 'Just because people are having fun doesn't mean they don't know what's going on.'

On the 'is it a ripoff' question, a pragmatic commenter offered the coldest take: 'Yeah it's copied, but it's a genuine budget substitute — what else are you gonna play?' Bandai Namco's only 'official' alternative on mobile is Gundam Versus: Rivals (争锋对决), which is notorious for aggressive monetization, terrible balance, and no mobile EXVS port. Players are stuck. Another user agreed: 'Some moves are literally ported over, others are Frankenstein combos, but honestly, as a GVG game, it meets the baseline. It's a substitute, that's it.'

The deeper issue points squarely at Bandai Namco's neglect. One commenter broke it down in detail: since EXVS Online Boost launched, the game has been a grindfest with extreme power imbalance, garbage balance patches, and painfully slow new unit releases. Combined with the arcade coin-drop business model bleeding players dry, EXVS's coin-insert rate has been declining steadily since COVID. For Japanese pros, finding a substitute isn't just understandable — it's practically survival.

The full backstory is even juicier. A Chinese EXVS content creator named Linlinyu (林林羽) had previously taken a Star Wing sponsorship deal and thrown shade at Gundam Versus: Rivals for its terrible feel and gacha greed. The critique was sponsored (so the shade was earned), but it was also factually correct. Rivals players mobbed Linlinyu and made counter-videos arguing Star Wing felt worse — but anyone who'd touched the real EXVS could tell who was closer to the source. Linlinyu got overwhelmed, and Rivals' devs quietly handed out freebies (everyone knew why, though it was never officially acknowledged). When the Japanese players started flooding into Star Wing, Linlinyu quickly translated and re-uploaded the Japanese videos to Bilibili, using them as ammo to throw more shade at Rivals players.

And here's the cherry on top: the whole wave of Japanese players actually boosted sales of NetEase's UU Game Booster — they needed VPN/accelerator services to play Star Wing from Japan. As one commenter quipped: 'Haven't spent a cent on the game yet, but already subscribed to UU Accelerator. NetEase is the real winner here.' There was also a brief mention of Star Wing's constellation system (命座), but players clarified it doesn't affect stats — only weapon loadouts and cancel routes — and there's a ¥30/month rental option for characters.

To sum it up: Star Wing's entire rise is essentially 'the dividend of Bandai Namco's incompetence.' EXVS players have suffered through years of neglect, and a decent-feeling substitute was enough to lure in world champions. Whether the 'more familiar than your parents' faces' meme is praise or an insult remains a question even the Japanese players themselves can't quite answer — after all, they used the word 'ripoff' while having the time of their lives.