Sony sues Tencent over Light of Motiram

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has filed a lawsuit against Tencent, claiming that its game Light of Motiram violates Sony’s IP rights by ripping off its own Horizon series, as first reported by Reuters.

Calling Light of Motiram a “slavish clone” of Horizon, Sony is asking the court to prevent Light of Motiram from being released on top of receiving an unspecified amount of monetary damages.

Aside from the obvious audio-visual parallels between Light of Motiram and Horizon that anyone can see, an additional detail provided by Sony makes the case especially spicy: Tencent pitched a Horizon game to Sony in March 2024, but the Japanese declined the proposal. However, Light of Motiram had been in development for a year by then, according to Sony’s best knowledge.

If this is indeed the correct order of events, it could imply that Tencent was developing its own Horizon game from the get-go and continued to roll with it after Sony declined a licensing deal. Naturally, that would make mounting a defense quite difficult.

At the same time, Sony didn’t appear to have any problems with the game immediately upon its announcement, even promoting it on its social media channels in China as an upcoming title for PS5.

In the lawsuit, Sony argues that “story and gameplay themes, cultural, and character elements [...] art style, landscapes, architectural and art elements, color palettes, fonts, and symbols. Lightning and points of view [...]” are all suspiciously similar to the same elements in the Horizon series. 

In regards to music, Sony says the similarities in “specific melodies, sounds, rhythms, and structure” are all “deliberate” due to Tencent hiring one of the composers involved with the development of Horizon Forbidden West.

Sony claims that informal discussions earlier this year were held with Tencent to resolve the issue, where the Chinese company again tried to strike a licensing agreement, to which Sony once more objected. Tencent decided to forge ahead with Light of Motiram anyways.

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