Sony is suing Tencent, alleging its upcoming recreation Light of Motiram is “a slavish clone of SIE’s…Horizon sequence of video video games.”
The grievance, which was filed in a California courtroom final week, alleges that Tencent’s upcoming journey recreation Light of Motiram is illegally just like Horizon: Forbidden West and Horizon: Zero Daybreak in every little thing from creature design to protagonist to advertising supplies. The grievance outlines quite a few similarities, evaluating numerous advertising screenshots from each video games in addition to the sport descriptions.
Like Horizon, Light of Motiram takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by big robotic dinosaurs who roam giant, pure environments akin to tropical forests, deserts, and snowy mountains. People, similar to in Horizon, stay in tribal teams and should struggle the machine animals, who additionally largely line up with these in Horizon, to outlive. Each video games even function red-haired girls protagonists that put on very comparable outfits and types, and Motiram even has its lead sporting a tool awfully just like Aloy’s “Focus” earpiece.
The grievance additionally cites headlines from a quantity of gaming web sites, together with Kotaku, TheGamer, and GameRant, in addition to numerous Steam and Reddit feedback, that every one comment on the similarities between the 2 video games and the chance that Sony would in all probability sue over the problem.
“The commonalities with Horizon disclosed within the Light of Motiram promotional recreation trailer and different promotional supplies included not solely equivalent story and gameplay themes, cultural, and character parts, but in addition artwork type, landscapes, architectural and artwork parts, colour palettes, fonts, and symbols. Lighting and factors of view are additionally extremely comparable,” the grievance reads.
Additionally per Sony’s grievance, Tencent allegedly knew precisely what it was doing right here. Sony says that Tencent started creating Light of Motiram in 2023, and approached Sony on the 2024 Game Builders Convention to ask for a licensing deal to develop its personal Horizon recreation. Sony turned Tencent down. However Tencent saved creating Light of Motiram anyway. Sony additionally claims it approached Tencent informally to resolve the copyright dispute as soon as it turned conscious of the sport, however when it did so, Sony says Tencent tried as soon as once more to license Horizon. Sony as soon as once more refused, and Tencent allegedly moved ahead with the sport’s promotions and playtests.
Sony is suing Tencent for copyright and trademark infringement, in addition to false designation of origin. It is asking the courtroom to completely enjoing Tencent from infringing its copyright, for prices and damages of as much as $150,000 for every separate work in Horizon that is been infringed, and calls for that Tencent ship all infringing supplies to Sony for destruction.
In the meantime, Light of Motiram has a Steam itemizing, however no launch date simply but.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You’ll find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.