Tencent Attacks Sony Lawsuit Over Game Accused Of Copying Horizon

Late last year, players noted that images of Tencent's upcoming game, Light of Motiram, had a very striking resemblance to Sony's Horizon games. Sony noticed as well and subsequently filed a lawsuit against Tencent. Now, Tencent is arguing that Sony's lawsuit has no merit and that the case against it should be dismissed.

According to The Game Post, Tencent's motion to dismiss accuses Sony of attempting to "fence off a well-trodden corner of popular culture and declare it Sony's exclusive domain." Tencent's position is that Sony's claim that Horizon Zero Dawn is "like no fictional world created before [or] since" is contradicted by the game's developers and represents an "impermissible monopoly on genre conventions."

Tencent notes that Horizon Zero Dawn art director Jan-Bart Van Beek acknowledged the game's similarity to an earlier title, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, in a behind-the-scenes documentary. According to Tencent, Sony originally shelved Horizon over those similarities before ultimately producing the game.