The Horizon Zero Dawn franchise is one of Sony’s most successful so it is perhaps no wonder that other game studios have taken inspiration from Aloy and her adventures.
However, there is a big difference between taking inspiration and straight up ripping a game off and upcoming open-world RPG Light of Motiram is yet to find that distinction.
When the game by Polaris Quest was first announced back in November 2024, it did not take long for gamers to notice its similarities to Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn.
Branded a shameless rip-off, Light of Motiram was heading for failure even before its launch and as a result, the game has now been delayed from a 2025 release to Q4 of 2027 in an attempt to make a more original RPG.
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With a red-haired protagonist living in a vast open world filled with mechanical creatures, it is no wonder that lawsuits have been pursued.
Back in July, Sony filed a lawsuit against Tencent claiming that Light of Motiram was a “slavish clone” of the Horizon series.
However, in recent days, Tencent has hit back by claiming that Sony "seeks an impermissible monopoly on genre conventions".
“Long before this lawsuit, developers of 'Horizon Zero Dawn' publicly acknowledged that the very same game elements that Sony claims to own exclusively were in fact borrowed from an earlier game" its statement read.
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"Sony's complaint tellingly ignores these facts. Instead, it tries to transform ubiquitous genre ingredients into proprietary assets.
By suing over an unreleased project that merely employs the same time honored tropes embraced by scores of other games released both before and after Horizon like 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild', 'Far Cry Primal', 'Far Cry New Dawn', 'Outer Wilds' ... and many more, Sony seeks an impermissible monopoly on genre conventions".
It seems as though Tencent is not taking this lawsuit lying down and has not only hit back at Sony but also Guerrilla Games itself.
Even in the comparison image shared on the Culture Crave Twitter account, it is clear to see that Light of Motiram is a dead-ringer for Horizon Zero Dawn and fans of the Sony series were quick to share their thoughts on the situation.
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“If I didn't know what Horizon Zero Dawn was I would think they were the same damn thing,” one user admitted.
User Chort added, “Taking inspiration from multiple other games and incorporating it into your own is fine, what Tencent is doing is a blatant rip-off of a single game lol.”
It seems as though nobody is falling for Tencent’s defence here so it remains to be seen if Light of Motiram will make enough changes over the next few years to stand as its own game.
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Topics: Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games, Sony