A Spiritual Successor is a type of sequel that is not part of the same world or story as its predecessor, but is nonetheless considered to be a successor because it shares common themes, styles, and elements. In other words, it’s a sequel “in spirit”.
I was thinking about how Bioshock is considered a spiritual successor to System Shock 2, went down a rabbit hole, and came across this list.
There was also the second part of that
But yeah some are going to be more blatant than others.
When you look at what influenced a game’s development more often than not there will be a long list. Look at Fallout New Vegas for example and how many movie references it has.
But you would not argue that F:NV is the spiritual “successor” to those movies just because they were referenced.
If I didn’t know about Hotline Miami and you told me about like: “It’s like somebody made a new Hitman game!” I would be completely lost playing the game. Whole different perspective, style, flow. IMO being a “successor” implies more than just similar elements or references.
That said, wtaching out for examples I do not find so many other, that I think are similiarly weak as the Hitman/Hotline one. So it may be the exception in the list.