A new clone war is upon us as Sony has filed a lawsuit against Tencent, claiming its “Light of Motiram” title is a blatant rip-off of the Horizon franchise. Sony has typically kept sales numbers private until either a significant anniversary-type event release occurs, or someone else acknowledges a monumental sales milestone is reached, such as the cross-platform blockbuster success story of Helldivers 2, or, in this case, a lawsuit is filed. Newly filed court documents state that Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise has sold more than 38 million units for Sony. Those looking for some interesting, similarly leaked industry details ought to Google the many things revealed during Microsoft’s purchase of Activision, where the curtain was pulled back to unveil industry-wide confidential information. We’ve got a few of those stories covered that can be found here.
Meanwhile, Tencent announced Lights of Motiram, its open-world survival game for PC, consoles, and mobile devices, back in November 2024. While some say imitation is the best form of flattery, things can be a bit different when selling a product that well, might have too many similarities (anyone still keeping track of Palworld?). Below is the original announcement trailer, where you can decide for yourself if Tencent has perhaps crossed a line, and by the way, just to be clear, the following trailer is not for a new Horizon game, despite that at one point there were many spin-off games announced to be in the works.
The lawsuit, as reported on by Reuters and whose documents were acquired by Deadline, alleges copyright infringement by Tencent. Without getting into the legalese of it all, most folks could probably easily identify similarities in color schemes, its main character, machine animals, weapons, and technology. It’s also been said that Tencent approached Sony for a potential partnership prior to announcing Lights of Motiram.
Per the court documents obtained by Deadline:
“Tencent’s copying of Horizon is so blatant that the public has described it as “crazy,” “insane,” and “shameless.” Tencent also used its rip-off of the iconic Horizon main character “Aloy” as the centerpiece of its pre-release marketing and promotional strategy, deliberately causing numerous game lovers to confuse Light of Motiram as the next game in the Horizon series when encountering Tencent’s promotional game play videos and social media accounts.”