Sony calls Tencent game ‘slavish clone’ of Horizon in new lawsuit

A screenshot from Light of Motiram.

Sony is suing Tencent to effort to halt the merchandise of Light of Motiram, which Sony describes arsenic a “slavish clone” of its Horizon bid of games, as reported by Reuters. Light of Motiram was announced past twelvemonth with a trailer featuring an aesthetic that’s rather akin to the Horizon franchise — including immense robot animals and adjacent a rubric font that resembles the Horizon games.

In its complaint, Sony alleges that “unlawful copying of the protected audiovisual elements of the Horizon games, arsenic good arsenic its deliberate adoption of a confusingly akin quality mark, constitutes some copyright and trademark infringement that should beryllium enjoined immediately.” 

According to the lawsuit, Tencent started processing Light of Motiram successful 2023. At the Game Developers Conference successful March 2024, Tencent allegedly pitched Sony connected a connection that would person its Aurora Studios subsidiary “develop a Horizon sequel crippled nether the requested license,” which Sony rejected. “Apparently, Tencent was undeterred by SIE’s refusal to licence its Horizon intelligence property,” Sony says.

According to the game’s Steam page, Light of Motiram’s developer and steadfast is Polaris Quest. In the lawsuit, Sony alleges that “Upon accusation and belief, Tencent Shanghai does concern nether the names ‘Aurora Studios’ and/or ‘Polaris Quest.’”

Sony says that it “had discussions with Tencent” to informally effort to “resolve its interest that Light of Motiram violated its intelligence spot rights.” However, Sony alleges that Tencent “again sought to licence the Horizon intelligence property,” to which it “communicated intelligibly and unequivocally that it would not licence the Horizon assets to Tencent, objected to Light of Motiram, and insisted that it beryllium withdrawn.”

Tencent didn’t reply to a petition for comment.

This isn’t the lone high-profile suit implicit allegedly akin video games. Last year, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement suit against Palworld-developer Pocketpair. Pocketpair said successful May that it had to region features from the crippled due to the lawsuit.