Sony Sues Tencent for Allegedly Ripping Off Horizon Series With Light of Motiram - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 28 July 2025 / 3,953 Views
Sony has filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Tencent, according to a report from Reuters. the lawsuit alleges Tencent has ripped off Sony Interactive Entertainment's Horizon series of video games with Light of Motiram.
Light of Motiram is an open-world action-adventure game announced last year for the PlayStation 5, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, iOS, and Android.
Sony in the lawsuit claims Light of Motiram is a "slavish clone" that copies several elements from the Horizon series. This includes identical gameplay, story themes, artistic elements, as well as other similarities. The company also states it declined an offer from Tencent last year to collaborate on a new Horizon game.
The lawsuit also mentions that video game journalists have said Light of Motiram is a "knock-off" of Horizon, including one who called the game Horizon Zero Originality.
Sony has asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and an order blocking Tencent from violating its intellectual property rights.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Well I mean, yes
It's extremely similar that if someone told me this was a spin-off and in the same world as Horizon I'd believe it.
Well this is blatant, though I actually doubt this lawsuit will go anywhere, I don't think Tencent would do something like this without being prepared for the obvious response from Sony.
That's definitely a rip-off if I've ever seen one... but as long as it's not set in the same universe or anything and nothing has been taken directly from the Horizon games (or recreated to match very closely), I'm not sure if there's anything illegal here. Clearly Sony thinks there might be though, so this definitely an interesting case.
Oh yeah, they weren't getting away with this one lol
This lawsuit is completely justified since that game seemed like an exact copycat aesthetically from Horizon!
Tencent supposedly tried to get the license for Horizon twice based on the game they had made.
I dunno, but this looks like a blatant copy of the IP. I know some of us are looking at this as a company being copied, but there were individual artists credited with the the art style of Horizon, the concept art, the general design of the robots...
I'm curious where this goes.
The notion that one can own an idea is nonsensical. There are no original ideas. Everything is an iteration on something else. Making a game that looks and feels like another game should not be cause for concern.
Ideas cannot be copyrighted. The expression of an idea can be copyrighted.
And it should not be able to be.
If I remember correctly, someone, possibly a few, predicted exactly this back when Nin sued Palworld.
Now it's open season.
Next up.... Bungie?
The game isn't out yet as far as I know. How to know how far it is a copy?
Nintendo could only get Palworld on 1 specific mechanic. I believe Sony's claim is to broad for it to make a chance in court.
This case will only bring more exposure to the Tencent game.
Are you just ignoring how many of the Palworld monsters are blatant copies of many Pokémon? How the poster boy is literally Lucario?
I know. But Nintendo did not make its case on that, because it thought chances of a judge agreeing would be small. So they went with something that did.
Another blow against the whole ''Nintendo would be the only company to sue for this'' myth.
Just curious, is everyone who is in agreement with Sony in here also in agreement with Nintendo for suing that game that blatantly copied Pokémon?
