In my game, I plan on implementing various optional unlockable costumes, earned by collecting in-game items. One hypothetical example of such a costume would be Banjo's (from Banjo-Kazooie) shorts, backpack, and shark-tooth necklace. In trying to find the answer to this, I've found plenty of information about directly using Banjo himself (clearly illegal without a license), but I haven't found any form of direct answer when it comes to his outfit placed onto the main character.
The closest thing I've found to an answer are similar cosmetics being used in other games -- In TF2, for example, there's a hat that references Mario's hat, but replaces the M with an E, while in Terraria, there's a direct recreation of Mario's entire outfit. Obviously, though, just because another company was able to do such a thing doesn't mean I necessarily will be able to as well.
Lastly, I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference, but it's also worth mentioning that the art assets used for these costumes would be entirely created by me in the image/likeness of the other characters' outfits -- obviously, ripping said assets from the games themselves would NOT be legal. Also, I do plan on selling the game and making a profit on it.
Would creating these homage outfits be legal, or would it violate the copyright and/or trademark (not sure which applies) of the character?
