When Tencent first announced Light of Motiram, everyone, including Wccftech, immediately saw it as a clone or rip-off of Sony's Horizon series. Which is why no one was surprised when, at the end of last month, a copyright lawsuit from Sony attacked Tencent for Light of Motiram. The lawsuit cites the multiple headlines that drew the same connections we did, and goes as far to call Light of Motiram a "slavish clone" of Guerilla Games' series.
Now that Sony has pulled the lever on a lawsuit, Tencent has been caught making a few potentially legally-significant changes to Light of Motiram's Steam page. Spotted by The Game Post, the key art for Light of Motiram has been changed, the game's description has been rewritten, and multiple screenshots, including ones featuring Light of Motiram's own red-haired player character, have been removed.
The game's original description on Steam read as such:
"In a world overrun by colossal machines, explore the vast open world, build your base of operations, advance technology, train Mechanimals, and take on formidable bosses. Starting from the primitive age, forge a new path of development. Defy machination, survive with mechanimals."
The new description for the game now reads:
"Make smart use of everything around you to stay alive and face off against formidable bosses, every step is fraught with danger and requires courage. Only by overcoming the challenges of survival can you carve out a place for yourself in this unforgiving land."
A much more generic game description that doesn't reference the Mechanimals that look directly styled after the robotic dinosaurs featured in Horizon.
Will these changes and removals have any significant impact on the lawsuit? Who knows, it's too early to tell which way things will sway, no matter how obvious the case might seem on the outside. Especially when considering details that the lawsuit revealed, like how Tencent apparently went to Sony asking if the two companies could partner on making a Horizon game. Sony declined, according to the lawsuit, and Tencent followed up that encounter with Light of Motiram.
It might look open-and-shut, and like Tencent decided to copy as much as they could from Horizon in order to leverage the similarities to create a new hit title, but copyright suits are rarely open-and-shut, especially ones where two massive companies are going head-to-head. Whichever way it swings, we can be sure that it will set an interesting precedent for the future.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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