This is my opinion, but after Five Nights at Freddy’s it feels like every indie game I’ve seen recently has to be Mascot Horror. Five Nights at Freddy’s is successful, but with the release of Indigo Park Chapter One it feels like there is a certain over saturation of these. I understand there are titles that do the formula right and I do enjoy games like Poppy Playtime and Garten of BanBan is fun for its meme potential and just being weird, but for every game like those there are tons flooding the market.

It reminds me of when after Mario first became popular every
game needed to be a platformer. Some like Sonic the Hedgehog, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot have been remembered and had recent releases, but others like Banjo Kazooie and Conkers Bad Fur Day get one or two releases on the XBOX store or someone makes a game similar to it.

Similarly, when Halo became popular near every game after
needed shooting mechanics. Some did well like Call of Duty, but Resident Evil
started trying to copy the formula to an extent and from that we got Resident
Evil 6 which was less horror and just a bland shooter. We can still see games
try to incorporate shooting and while some like Mass Effect and Palworld do it
well due to their own mechanics others do it terribly.

This isn’t limited to just Indie games and some AAA games. After
the release of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wilds every game has been open world in some way. Pokemon Legends Arceus and Gension Impact did the system well, but at the same time from this we got Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and Sonic Frontiers.

While I understand getting inspiration or trying to profit
off a trend it can lead to a lack of creativity or variety in content people
want. While to an extent each game mentioned is different in some regard and
fun, there is a problem with the amount of similarities and genre.