Digital Sun, the Spanish studio behind Moonlighter and Cataclismo, has confirmed the ReVamp Discord playtest for its next game will stay invite-only rather than open to the public. The studio says the decision comes down to one thing: AI-powered cloning has made showing off unreleased games too risky.
Key takeaways
- ✓Digital Sun will run a closed ReVamp Discord playtest instead of a public demo.
- ✓The studio points to AI-driven cloning as the reason for limiting access.
- ✓Digital Sun previously released Moonlighter in 2018 and Cataclismo in 2024.
- ✓The developer says other studios share the same concern about copycats.
- ✓Closed, invite-only playtests are becoming more common among indie teams.
Instead of a broad demo on Steam or a public beta weekend, the ReVamp Discord playtest will be limited to a smaller pool of players who sign up and get selected individually. It is a notable shift for a studio that has previously welcomed wide community feedback, and it points to a problem spreading well beyond one developer’s inbox.
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Why Digital Sun is pulling back on public access
Digital Sun’s reasoning is blunt. Public demos and open betas generate gameplay footage, screenshots, and asset details that spread quickly online. In the past, that exposure was mostly a marketing win. Now, the studio argues, it is also a blueprint handed straight to anyone with AI tools capable of recreating art styles, mechanics, and systems in a fraction of the development time it originally took.
The studio has been direct about not being alone in this. As Digital Sun put it, “We know we’re not the only developers feeling this way.” That line captures a growing unease across smaller studios, many of which lack the legal resources to chase down copycats once a clone appears on a storefront weeks or months after a public test.
Closed testing through a platform like Discord gives Digital Sun more control over who sees builds, how footage circulates, and whether non-disclosure expectations are respected, even informally. It will not stop determined bad actors, but it narrows the exposure window considerably compared with a demo anyone can download.
Moonlighter and Cataclismo’s track record
Digital Sun is not a newcomer worried without cause. Its 2018 breakout hit, its 2018 breakout hit, Moonlighter, blended shopkeeping simulation with dungeon-crawling action and built a loyal fanbase on the strength of its distinctive pixel art and clever core loop. The studio followed that with Cataclismo, a tower-defence and city-building hybrid that entered early access in 2024 to solid reception.
Both games carry a visual and mechanical identity that would be relatively easy to approximate using modern AI generation tools, from sprite work to level layouts. That is precisely the kind of asset an open playtest would expose months before launch, giving opportunistic developers a head start on a quick, cheap imitation.
ReVamp itself remains light on public detail, but the studio’s willingness to limit early access to it signals how seriously it is treating the threat this time around, even at the cost of the broader word-of-mouth a public demo typically generates.
A wider problem across game development
Digital Sun’s move fits a pattern already playing out elsewhere in the industry. Storefronts like Steam have seen waves of cheaply produced clone games chase the coattails of viral hits, often appearing within weeks of an original’s success. AI tools have shortened that turnaround even further, making it possible to approximate art, UI, and gameplay loops without the years of iteration the original developer invested.
The concern is not limited to small indie teams, either. Elsewhere in the industry, a game decompilation hub recently froze its leaderboard over AI slop, highlighting how AI-generated content is complicating efforts to preserve and analyse games responsibly. At the same time, major players are leaning into AI rather than away from it. Tim Sweeney has predicted an AI-driven boom in game development, and Capcom has even said it plans to turn its RE Engine into an AI-assisted tool for its own teams.
That tension, AI as both a development accelerant and a cloning risk, is becoming a defining issue for studios weighing how openly to share work in progress. In Japan specifically, a recent survey found AI use in Japanese game development surging to 86 percent, underlining just how mainstream these tools have become across the industry, for better and worse.
| Approach | Reach | Cloning risk |
|---|---|---|
| Public demo or beta | Wide, open to anyone | High, footage and assets spread freely |
| Invite-only Discord playtest | Narrow, vetted participants | Lower, but not eliminated |
What it means for players and smaller studios
For players hoping to get early hands-on time with ReVamp, the practical effect is fewer spots and a more selective sign-up process, run through Discord, rather than a straightforward download. Those who do get in may also face tighter expectations around what they can share publicly during the test.
For the wider indie scene, Digital Sun’s decision adds to evidence that open playtesting, once treated as a near-default marketing tool, is becoming a calculated risk rather than an easy win. Smaller studios without legal teams or rapid-response resources may increasingly follow suit, favouring closed communities over public exposure even if it costs them some of the buzz a wide beta can generate.
Whether that shift meaningfully slows AI-assisted cloning remains to be seen. It does, however, show how quickly development norms are adapting to tools that did not exist in anything like their current form when Moonlighter first launched.
Frequently asked questions
What is Digital Sun’s next game called?
The studio’s next project is called ReVamp. Full details have not been widely shared, but the ReVamp Discord playtest is being run on an invite-only basis ahead of launch.
Why isn’t Digital Sun running a public demo for ReVamp?
The studio says rampant AI-led cloning of games makes public exposure too risky, since footage and assets from an open demo can be used to quickly recreate a similar game.
What games has Digital Sun made before?
Digital Sun is best known for Moonlighter, a 2018 shopkeeping and dungeon-crawling hybrid, and Cataclismo, a tower-defence and city-building game that entered early access in 2024.
How can players join the ReVamp playtest?
Interested players need to sign up and be selected individually, since access is limited and run through Discord rather than offered as an open public download.
