By now, you’ve likely heard of Light of Motiram by Polaris Quest, an open-world adventure title that many have dubbed a shameless Horizon Zero Dawn ripoff.
The title stars an auburn-haired heroine who navigates a world that combines elements of machinery, nature, and tribal aesthetics in perfect harmony. Sound familiar?
Even Light of Motiram’s font style echoes that which is used by the Horizon franchise.
The game’s various screenshots feature machine animals that you could easily mistake for Horizon’s Tremortusks or Chargers; in fact, there’s a couple of scenic promotional images where I’d struggle to identify it as being from anything other than Horizon.
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Polaris Quest, under the ownership of Tencent, has not been subtle about its inspirations which is a huge risk and one that seemingly won’t pay off.
In recent days, Sony has launched a lawsuit against Tencent where it’s seeking damages and the destruction of all of Light of Motiram’s assets.
What perhaps makes this case so much worse is that Sony’s lawsuit unveils that Tencent actually pitched an official Horizon sequel which was rejected by Sony.
Assumedly, Light of Motiram is what developers came up with following that rejection.
As spotted by Push Square, the lawsuit reveals that Tencent was interested in taking Aloy to Asia.
Their game would have seen Aloy receive an invitation from a mysterious group known as “the Orient”, sending our heroine off to a “distant kingdom” that would introduce players to “Eastern aesthetics”, “diverse ethnic/tribal clothing”, and “Eastern-inspired Mechanimals”.
Accompanying the pitch were several pieces of concept art, including one showing Aloy looking out at what could be a version of the Great Wall of China.
There is a reference to this sequel as “Horizon mobile” so I’m hazarding a guess that Tencent wanted to create a mobile release.
Personally, I don’t think Tencent’s pitch sounds half bad but the mobile part really lost me; I’m just not sure that lends itself to Horizon’s sprawling open worlds.
There’s also the issue that Guerrilla Games likely already has Aloy’s third and final chapter mapped out, so there’s no need for them to take pitches from external developers.
With this additional context, I’m pretty confident that Sony will rapidly succeed in putting Light of Motiram to bed for good.
It’s just a shame that those dev couldn't have channeled their creativity and ideas into something a little more original.
Well, they do say mess about and find out; or similar words to that effect.
Topics: Horizon Forbidden West, Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games, PlayStation, PlayStation 5