To start with the obvious: Deck13 Interactive/CI Games' Lords of the Fallen is a Dark/Demon's Souls knockoff. From its controls to its tone to its combat that punishes greedy and impatient players, Lords of the Fallen is the closest anyone outside of From Software has come to faithfully creating their own version of a Souls game. And really, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
At the height of their popularity, there were dozens of Space Invaders clones, the entire Japanese RPG industry in its early days consisted of clones of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and the NES was filled with countless potential heirs to Super Mario Bros. Street Fighter 2 derivatives were in every arcade. Today, everyone wants to make their own Call of Duty, and games like Shadow of Mordor owe everything they are to the Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham series. Imitating a popular game of the moment is a tried and true part of the video game industry that goes back to the beginning, and while many of these games were bland and quickly forgotten, some truly great titles came out of this tradition. Lords of the Fallen isn't perfect, but it's one of the good ones.
