Tencent has hit back at Sony’s lawsuit that claimed upcoming game Light of Motiram was nothing more than a “slavish clone” of Horizon Zero Dawn — and highlighted concerns within the PlayStation maker that its own game was too similar to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In a fresh response to Sony’s legal action, Chinese tech giant Tencent branded the lawsuit as an “impermissible” attempt to claim ownership of “well-trodden” tropes — such as a red-headed heroine fighting robot dinosaurs — and a bid by Sony to gain a monopoly over an entire genre.
In addition, Tencent highlighted past comments made by Horizon Zero Dawn developer Jan-Bart Van Beek, where the art director admitted concerns within Guerrilla that its concept was too similar to Ninja Theory’s 2013 game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West — another example of a red-headed heroine fighting robot beasts.
In a legal filing reported by The Game Post, Tencent described Sony’s move as an overreach, and highlighted other game franchises with similar elements to Horizon Zero Dawn such as The Legend of Zelda and Far Cry. It was “startling,” Tencent said, that Sony was now attempting to claim Horizon’s concept was original, rather than an idea based on “ubiquitous genre ingredients.”
“By suing over an unreleased project that merely employs the same time-honored tropes embraced by scores of other games released both before and after Horizon — like Enslaved, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Far Cry: Primal, Far Cry: New Dawn, Outer Wilds, Biomutant, and many more — Sony seeks an impermissible monopoly on genre conventions,” Tencent wrote.
Sony’s claim that Horizon was an original PlayStation concept was also “flatly contradicted” by remarks made in a behind-the-scenes documentary by Van Beek, Tencent stated, claiming that Guerrilla had briefly shelved work on Horizon Zero Dawn due to internal concerns it shared too many similarities with Enslaved.
“Long before this lawsuit was filed, the developers of Horizon Zero Dawn publicly acknowledged that the very same game elements that, today, Sony claims to own exclusively, were in fact borrowed from an earlier game,” Tencent argued.
“Mr. Van Beek warned, ‘I don’t think we should do this; it touches too much of these other points,’ referring to prominent elements of Enslaved. Sony shelved the project — only to revive it later with full awareness that the idea was far from novel. When Horizon Zero Dawn finally launched in 2017, the gaming community noted its striking resemblance to Enslaved and other genre staples.”
Tencent’s rebuttal attempts to dismiss other elements of Sony’s lawsuit, too, by stating that its work on Light of Motiram was unconnected to a failed pitch meeting with Sony for a Horizon spin-off. Tencent has also claimed that Sony’s entire lawsuit is invalid because the company had named the wrong parts of Tencent in its initial complaint.
Still, while attempting to defend itself from Sony’s legal action, it is notable that Tencent has also seemingly made adjustments to the work-in-progress Light of Motiram itself. A glance at the game’s Steam page shows it has been scrubbed of screenshots and logos that depicted its redheaded star and those robot dinosaurs. The suggestion here is that Tencent plans to ultimately release Light of Motiram without the elements Sony has deemed most similar to Horizon. It’ll be interesting to see how Sony responds to these apparent alterations when it issues its rebuttal.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
