Sony sues Tencent over Light of Motiram calling it a "slavish clone" of the Horizon Zero Dawn series

Considering Guerrilla outsourced a lot of their work on Horizon, including the design for the iconic Thunderjaw monster to Chinese sweatshops, I say this is fair .


Last edited by Pyrate on 29 Jul 2025 at 3:29 pm UTC

Sony is fortunate that this is such a slam dunk rip-off that it should win, otherwise Tencent would crush Sony in court as they are a far larger company. lol

IF Sony win, it will be bad for video-gaming. Its not a clone/copy of Horizon. It sure as hell looks similar and has a similar vibe, as does Horizon to Assassin's Creed games. As does Star Wars to Dune, as does all arcade racing games to Outrun. I dislike corpo crap at the best of times. But when I see a Company like Sony that routinely rips off other games (and steals art assets), I get a little fed up. I present my evidence as Astro-Bot - which is a Mario Clone. If Sony want to start throwing their corpo-crap around, they better get ready for a whirlwind - Nintendo could make an awful lot of trouble for Sony in the courts, as could SEGA - and in Japan they take copyright law to the next level.

I suspect that if Tencent lose the case, they will just release in BRICS countries instead. I think the market in India and China would exceed anything in the US anyway. Bear in mind that whilst the US has a large market for video games, compared to the RotW - its only about 1/3 and reducing every day. China's Economy is still growing at 5% India at 6%, the USA at only 2.8%, and European nations (inc. UK) are relatively stagnant at about 1%. Which means more and more Indian and Chinese consumers will have enough disposable income and free time to buy systems and games.

The only people who will really lose in these cases, are US/Western gaming consumers. I personally can see enough differences between the two games, as to throw out the case anyway. And I say that as someone who really enjoyed the Horizon games.

As a footnote.. RUSSIA is growing at 4.3% - those sanctions are really working aren't they?

You cannot copyright a style. If the new game is a co-op survival game and the old game is a single-player action role-playing game then the new game isn't a clone or copy. Otherwise you may as well say that Company of Heroes is a clone/copy of Medal of Honour.

Sony is fortunate that this is such a slam dunk rip-off that it should win, otherwise Tencent would crush Sony in court as they are a far larger company. lol

They seem to be on par (85/90 billion dollars sales volume). Plus, I don't think being say twice as big would make a difference. There's only so much money you can spend on lawyers.

ehhhh, sorry @wolfgang but I disagree. This ABSOLUTELY is a direct copy/clone. I can look at some screenshots and videos and I don't think I could even tell you which game they came from. Even down to the stances the characters take during actions. It's blatant.

I don't think it'll matter in the end though, because yeah, Sony will win (as it should) but that won't mean shit in China so it'll keep selling there.

> representatives from Tencent (a claim from Sony) did actually approach them to discuss licensing the Horizon franchise in March 2024 at GDC

That's actually very nice of them, and, dare I say, not entirely expected from a Chinese company. Too bad that they continued with their project despite not getting the licence.

Intellectual property theft is standard business practice for Chinese companies.

Intellectual property theft is standard business practice for Chinese companies.

The word "Chinese" can be safely removed.

But this is absolutely blatant and should be a simple win for Sony who won't care about the money they win - they'll want this blocked from sale on all markets, as it devalues their Horizon "brand" / IP.

Disagree with the Astrobot comparison. Yeah, it's a mario-clone. But there simply no way you could look at a screenshot of it and say so. They didn't make Astrobot an Italian plumber. Whereas here, a screenshot is all you need to see what it's (obviously) copying.

As a footnote.. RUSSIA is growing at 4.3% - those sanctions are really working aren't they?

Yes they are. Since we never sanctioned their domestic weapons production. And that's what they do.

The two games may look the same, but that doesn't mean anything. The important part of a game isn't what it looks like but how it plays. To give a counter-example: if I were to make a complete clone of Clair Obscur but changed the visuals to be PSX-style then I can't call it a new and unique game, even if anyone can look at screenshots and clearly see the difference. The gameplay and story are far more important in determining if one game is just a copy of another than the graphics and visual design.

The various comments here on how 'this is expected from Chinese companies' make me think that the issue here isn't about whether or not LoM is an HZD clone or not, but just 'China bad'. Don't get me wrong, there's no love lost between me and the PRC (the mistreatment of the Uyghurs is a crime against humanity), but going 'games are not allowed to look similar' to fight this fight seems like really bad tactics.

@tmtvl
I disagree, it's not about how the game plays that has Sony's knickers in a twist, it's their assertion that if an average gamer was shown screenshots of both games they may be unable to tell them apart. I have not played HZD and looking at LOM Steam page, it looks an awful lot like HZD. If I didn't already know about HZD I might mistake this game for Sony's.

Not that I really care, however: yet another Far Future Taken Over By Large Robots. I'm playing Stellar Blade and it's basically the same premise: Earth has been taken over by deranged robot alien hybrids. Nier Automata is basically the same thing. HZD introduced more hunting elements. Now LoM is like, the same premise again, even with similar font design.

it's not about how the game plays that has Sony's knickers in a twist, it's their assertion that if an average gamer was shown screenshots of both games they may be unable to tell them apart.

Yeah, and I'm saying that's bullshit. If Sony wins on those merits then we can no longer have games set in the modern U.S.A., because they would look to much like GTA. We would no longer have games set in WW2, because they would look too much like Medal of Honour. It's a bullshit lawsuit and the judge should just throw it out due to lack of merit.

It looks shockingly similar indeed, but then Quake, Doom, Duke Nukem, etc back in the days also looked very similar.

I'm surprised to see people here and in the Discord rooting for Sony in this. Making a new thing that looks or behaves like an already-existing thing is everywhere in the Free software world.

Games copying other games is exactly how we get the idea of game genres - Doom clones, roguelikes, metroidvanias, souls-likes, and so on.

Game rules aren't protectable (and these games are different in that aspect anyway). Game code is protected, but there's been no accusation that the old game code was stolen to make the new. Game names and character names are protected, as are specific lines of dialogue, but those are all different here. The only thing Sony has as a basis is trade dress.

This game is one asset flip amongst millions. A Sony win won't do anything about those, but giving corporations more control over the look-and-feel of their potential competitors is bad for everybody.

This isn't about genres. And it's not about free software either. This is brand protection. As I said earlier, if you make a mario-clone, that's fine - plenty of them around.

But if you make a game with assets, storyline, art style and marketing so close to an existing brand that people will likely become confused about your brand, then that's when lawyers will get involved.

There is absolutely no mistaking the intent here. Tencent are trying to cash in on HZD's success, and they're clumsily copying every aspect of the game to do so. I don't particularly love Sony, but they should win this. Easily.