Seven months in the past, Tencent, the world’s greatest gaming firm, revealed a brand new challenge: Mild of Motiram, a futuristic open-world sport from studio Polaris Quest the place machines rule the land. If that sounds acquainted, the precise trailer and its cybernetic animals solely additional implied a selected inspirational supply: Sony and Guerrilla Video games’ Horizon collection. Now Sony is taking Tencent to court docket over it.
Filed on July 25, the lawsuit intends to dam Tencent from releasing the sport, which it argues violates Sony Interactive Leisure’s mental property, whereas additionally searching for $150,000 in statutory damages for every separate work within the Horizon collection infringed. In its lawsuit, Sony calls Mild of Motiram a “slavish clone” of Horizon that egregiously replicates a number of the signature parts discovered within the PlayStation collection.
Notably, Sony alleges that Tencent approached them in 2024, via its Aurora Studios, with a proposal to work on a cellular Horizon spinoff sport, however the Japanese firm declined. Tencent’s pitch, based on the lawsuit, proposed including “Jap aesthetics” and “survival and crafting, pet taming,” and multiplayer elements to the Horizon collection. The pitch deck “included mock-ups of Jap-inspired designs and settings, together with one in all Aloy […] standing on the Nice Wall of China,” the swimsuit alleges.
The unique trailer for Motiram options machines decked in white and blue, very like the enemies do in Horizon, alongside aboriginal-like apparel with a tech bent. The protagonists differ in that Aloy, star of Horizon, has lengthy crimson hair, whereas the primary character in Mild of Motiram is a raven-haired girl with a shorter haircut. However the costumes share some similarities, just like the predominance of brown leather-based. Motiram’s protagonist also can put on a helmet that makes her look much more like Aloy, and Tencent is utilizing that mixture in its advertising and marketing supplies. Within the lawsuit, Sony requests that Tencent hand over all such advertising and marketing supplies in order that it could possibly destroy them.
Based mostly on the trailer, Horizon’s not the one debatable affect on Mild of Motiram; at one level we see the participant character land on a seashore in a glider very like the one in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There’s additionally a automobile that’s harking back to Future 2’s sparrow bikes. And to be truthful to Tencent, there are some differentiating concepts right here, like co-op, base-building, and a deal with crafting. There’s the compulsory chopping a tree footage you see in most fashionable survival video games.
However the affinity with Horizon is difficult to disregard, as evidenced by fan remarks left on Mild of Motiram’s trailer. “Whenever you lend your work to your college good friend and inform him to repeat it however change some issues,” jokes the highest touch upon the YouTube trailer.
Sony faucets into this public sentiment all through the lawsuit, the place it cites information articles and feedback that decision out the similarities as “shameless” and bash Tencent’s sport as “Horizon Zero Originality.”
Polygon contacted Sony Interactive Leisure for touch upon the swimsuit and can replace when the corporate responds. As of this writing, Mild of Motiram nonetheless has pages on Steam and the Epic Video games Retailer with the flexibility to wishlist the sport.
