By Light of Motiram, the Horizon Zero Dawn lookalike that, seemingly, the entire games industry clowned on after its reveal last year, has now officially drawn the ire of Sony, which is suing Tencent for allegedly ripping off its Horizon IP.
First reported by Reuters, the suit calls Light of Motiram a “slavish clone” of the Horizon games, which started with Horizon Zero Dawn in 2017. Sony skewers the gameplay, themes, and art style, among other details. The suit also reveals that Sony refused an offer from Tencent last year to collaborate on a new Horizon game.
Light of Motiram is in the works for PC at Tencent subsidiary Polaris Quest. Where Horizon Zero Dawn and its sequel Horizon Forbidden West focused on open-world action and narrative in a lush setting filled with robotic animals, Light of Motiram has been billed as more of a Palworld-like survival game where you tame mechanical animals called – seriously – Mechanimals.
Base building, co-op, and Mechanimal customization are said to be core to Light of Motiram, whereas Horizon was about protagonist Aloy and her journey and abilities.
Genre differences aside, the look and theme of Light of Motiram have earned it some critics. Countless people have made the argument that Sony is now making in court: this looks a lot like Horizon, from the bow-equipped huntress look of the main characters, down to specific screenshots like the above. (The fact that the reveal trailer sees a little floating robot revive your character like a Ghost from Destiny probably doesn’t help, as Sony paid $3.6 billion for Destiny developer Bungie).
Both games feature tribes of humans using a mix of primitive and futuristic technology in a world where, to quote the Light of Motiram Steam page, “Earth and human civilization as we once knew it are gone.” Many machine designs use similar frames and color accents. You’d be forgiven for mistaking many Mechanimals for some of the machines from Horizon; the Broadheads, Thunderjaws, Tallnecks, and Longlegs seem especially close to their newly manufactured Tencent cousins.
“I am colossally amused there is no shame left,” Japanese games analyst Serkan Toto said of Light of Motiram’s reveal last November.
Calling something a ripoff online is quite different to proving material IP infringement in court, but this lawsuit didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Per Reuters, Sony is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an order that would block Tencent from violating its IP rights.
We’ve reached out to Sony for comment.