Schedule I got a Nintendo Switch clone, and it’s exactly as awful as you’d expect

I think I’ve found my new favorite hobby – tracking down shady knockoffs of popular Steam games on the PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop. Take Schedule I, for example: it was the biggest Steam hit in March, went totally viral, and even got compared so much to Drug Dealer Simulator that the publisher of that game launched an investigation. But now, the Schedule I dev should probably take a closer look at a certain game that popped up on the eShop in June.

Nintendo eShop’s quality control problem strikes again

Schedule I – Mafia Empire was released on the Nintendo Switch store on June 06, 2025. And let’s just say the shady dev behind it didn’t just rip the name, they even copied the key art to make it look almost identical to the real Schedule I from Steam.

The actual game is still in Early Access and hasn’t come to any consoles yet. Sadly, this isn’t anything new. Whenever an indie title suddenly goes viral, sketchy developers rush to throw up fake versions on PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo, taking advantage of the fact that these digital stores have terrible (or rather non-existent) quality control. Same thing happened with R.E.P.O., A Game About Digging A Hole, and others.

Source: Schedule I - Mafia Empire; Developer: UIGAMES

Source: Schedule I; Developer: TVGS

When you actually compare Mafia Empire to the real Schedule I beyond just the key art, the difference is obvious – and it’s bad, really bad. Just a few seconds in and you can tell this thing was slapped together fast and sloppy, just to vaguely resemble the real game and get shoved onto the store.

There’s not even a basic tutorial to explain the controls, you just spawn in a van with an annoying tune blaring in the background, and that’s it. Sure, Schedule I started in the same spot, but at least it gave you a few pointers. In Mafia Empire, you’re completely lost, and to make things worse, the movement and camera already feel clunky. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy games that don’t hold your hand and let you figure things out on your own, but this isn’t that. This is just lazy work, plain and simple.

What really bugs me, though, is that Schedule I – Mafia Empire will probably stay on the Nintendo eShop until the real dev at TVGS step in and do something. That store is packed with things like this, and it’s not just knockoffs; you can even find multiple versions of the same game floating around to mess with the store’s algorithm. It feels like the moderation team up there doesn’t really do much, if anything at all.

Schedule I

March 24, 2025

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