LogInA natural turn of events, made weird by the fact that PlayStation itself had promoted the game when it was announced.
When Tencent's subsidiary Polaris Quest announced its upcoming action-adventure LIGHT OF MOTIRAM in late 2024, the general consensus was that it was a blatant rip-off of PlayStation's Horizon series, with gamers, influencers, and journalists alike all pointing out the similarities between the two games' promotional materials, worlds, art styles, enemies, and even main characters.
Eight months later, news of LIGHT OF MOTIRAM's resemblance to one of its most recognizable and profitable franchises has seemingly reached Sony, which has now filed a lawsuit against Tencent, accusing them of copyright and trademark infringement.
Describing Tencent's title as a "slavish clone" of the Horizon series, the suit alleges that the Chinese gaming giant deliberately copied Sony's IP to confuse consumers and make them believe Tencent's game is part of an already-established franchise – one that, according to the filing, has sold 38 million copies as of Summer 2025.
According to the plaintiff, Tencent began development on LIGHT OF MOTIRAM in 2023, featuring "a young, red-headed female protagonist and tribal groups fighting for survival among large robotic animals in a post-apocalyptic world," mirroring Horizon's core elements. Furthermore, Sony claims that they were approached by Tencent in March 2024 to co-develop a new Horizon installment – an offer Sony declined. Despite the rejection, Tencent allegedly proceeded to develop the game in secret.
"The overall impression conveyed by Tencent's adoption in Light of Motiram of the same high-fidelity, post-apocalyptic visual aesthetics blending lush natural environments, tribal culture, futuristic mechanical elements, and ethereal sounds primarily in the soprano register, specific elements of which are identified in thorough detail below, is substantially similar to the Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West audiovisual works and infringes the copyrights therein," the accusation reads.
Further, Tencent deliberately adopted Sony's approach to branding, using Tencent's knockoff red-haired female main character as the dominant visual element to signify the Light of Motiram game on multiple social media platforms."
The lawsuit goes on to list numerous similarities between the games and their promotional materials, along with a collection of comments and news headlines describing Tencent's title as a Horizon clone, as proof that not only Sony, but the entire gaming community views LIGHT OF MOTIRAM as plagiarism.
For Tencent's alleged violations, Sony is asking the court to deem the game a copyright and trademark infringement, order Tencent to destroy all materials that qualify as such, and reimburse SIE accordingly.
While the similarities between the two games are indeed obvious and the legal proceedings seem like a natural turn of events, there's one important detail that makes the entire lawsuit feel a wee bit odd – the fact that PlayStation itself was promoting LIGHT OF MOTIRAM back when it was first announced.
As spotted by 80 Level in early December 2024, about a week after the game's official reveal, PlayStation China's official Weibo account posted a seven-minute trailer announcing that Tencent's title would be available on PlayStation 5, while Tencent promised "more cooperation with PlayStation in the future."
With that context, we can assume that Sony was well aware of LIGHT OF MOTIRAM, its promotional campaign, and its similarities to the Horizon series, yet chose to do nothing about it, thus raising one simple question: Why act now, eight months later?
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