Light of Motiram: Tencent's Reply to Sony

Light of Motiram, the open world title in development at Polaris Quest for Tencent, features a setting and characteristics that, no one denies (not even them), closely resemble those of Sony and Guerrilla's Horizon brand... too much for the PlayStation owner to refrain from suing the Chinese company for plagiarism.

According to TheGamePost, Tencent recently responded to the accusations by going on the offensive: according to the defense lawyers, the Japanese company is attempting to establish a monopoly over a video game genre – open world games – that does not, in fact, belong to it.

Light of Motiram: Tencent's Argument

According to the document, Sony is trying to use the power of the law to seize "a well-trodden corner of popular culture by declaring it their own domain. Sony's accusation ignores these facts. Instead, it seeks to transform the ingredients of various genres into proprietary assets, suing an unreleased project that simply uses the same clichés established by many games released both before and after Horizon – such as Enslaved, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Far Cry: Primal, Far Cry: New Dawn, Outer Wilds, Biomutants, and many others. Sony seeks to obtain an unacceptable monopoly over a conventional genre."

In support of these arguments, Tencent also cites a Making-of Horizon documentary in which art director Jan-Bart Van Beek admitted that there were some initial hesitations about the setting due to similarities with Enslaved. – as if to say: "If they already copied from others, how can they accuse us of plagiarism?"

On the other hand, it is also implied that the team is certainly working to refine and differentiate the game from Horizon as much as possible to move away from blatant plagiarism: for example, it is emblematic that after Sony's accusation, all images of the game's protagonist disappeared from Steam, as she bore numerous similarities to Aloy, first and foremost her red hair.

Light of Motiram is announced for release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in a generic 2027 – assuming the lawsuit with Sony concludes in time...