Sony accuses Tencent of playing a 'shell game' with its Horizon-like survival game, seeks a preliminary injunction against it

When Tencent unveiled its upcoming Light of Motiram survival game in late 2024, we (and a lot of other places and people) called out its many similarities to Sony's Horizon series, and idly wondered whether it was tempting fate and SIE's legal team.

The answer came in July 2025 when Sony filed suit, shortly after which Tencent did something unusual: It purged most of the Horizon-like content from the game's Steam page, and delayed its launch target from late 2025 to late 2027—all without saying a word about why, or even acknowledging it was being done at all.

The "why" seemed obvious enough: Light of Motiram really did look an awful lot like Horizon: Zero Dawn, in some very overt ways. Despite Tencent's lack of comment, I assumed the store page changes, and the huge two-year delay, represented a fairly complete walkback and rework. But it seems that Sony isn't buying it: As reported by Games Fray, Sony has now filed for a preliminary injunction against Tencent's use of any material "copied or derived" from the Horizon games.

That covers a lot of ground, but the filing focuses heavily on Tencent's use of a character in Light of Motiram promotional images who looks a lot like Aloy, the "iconic" protagonist in the Horizon games. How similar are they? Judge for yourself:

The filing also points out the "look-alike animal robot machines, look-alike tribes, and even a look-alike Focus device" in Light of Motiram's screenshots and trailers, and—I was not aware of this—alleges that "Tencent even hired a composer of the Horizon score to give its game trailer the same sound as Horizon."

There's a lot of that sort of thing going on. Also from the lawsuit:

Sony alleges that Tencent approached it in March 2024 seeking a license to do a Horizon game; Sony declined, but "Tencent went ahead with its plan to use the Horizon intellectual property" anyway, the filing claims, announcing "the upcoming release of an open-world survival game entitled Light of Motiram with a striking resemblance to the Horizon games." Sony says it tried to resolve the matter privately, because it and Tencent are "worldwide business partners," but Tencent's response was to ask again for a license. Sony again refused, so Tencent dropped a new Light of Motiram trailer and announced upcoming playtests, at which point Sony sued.

The Light of Motiram delay and changes to the Steam and Epic Store pages could be viewed as surrender to the inevitable, but Sony sees things differently: It alleges Tencent "has obfuscated its plans for releasing Light of Motiram and hid behind its opaque corporate structure," and says it's "deeply skeptical of Tencent's alteration of the purported release after SIE filed suit," noting that Q4 2027, while a couple years away, will still arrive before the likely conclusion of this lawsuit—which is why Sony is requesting the preliminary injunction now.

It brings to mind the FTC's legal challenge of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023: The FTC sought a preliminary injunction putting the deal on hold until its lawsuit was fully concluded, to ensure Microsoft didn't just do the deal anyway while that case was working its way through the courts. Which is what ultimately happened: The FTC's request for an injunction was denied, a few months later the UK's Competition and Market Authority dropped its objections, and the deal was done. A year and a half after that, the FTC added some insult to its injury and decided to throw in the towel on the whole thing, and, well, we all know what happened next.

Sony's request for a preliminary injunction has roughly the same aim: To prevent Tencent from using Horizon-styled material to promote Light of Motiram, thereby causing "consumer confusion" and "irreparable harm," until its lawsuit is fully settled. Which seems reasonable, especially since Tencent has at least superficially pulled back on that front anyway, but I am not a lawyer, as the saying goes, and so the likelihood of success is not something I'll speculate on. There is one other interesting parallel to the FTC-Microsoft situation, though: Sony's request is being heard by Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, the same judge who rejected the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction against Microsoft.