Sony Calls Tencent Game ‘slavish Clone’ Of Horizon In New Lawsuit

A screenshot from Light of Motiram.

Sony is suing Tencent to effort to extremity nan 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 pinch a trailer featuring an artistic that’s rather akin to nan Horizon franchise — including immense robot animals and moreover a title font that resembles nan Horizon games.

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

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

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

Sony says that it “had discussions pinch 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 nan Horizon intelligence property,” to which it “communicated intelligibly and unequivocally that it would not licence nan Horizon assets to Tencent, objected to Light of Motiram, and insisted that it beryllium withdrawn.”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 nan only high-profile suit complete allegedly akin video games. Last year, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company revenge a patent infringement suit against Palworld-developer Pocketpair. Pocketpair said successful May that it had to region features from nan crippled due to nan lawsuit.