Tencent has agreed to halt all promotion and public testing of Light of Motiram – the post-apocalyptic open-world survival game Sony previously accused of being a “slavish clone” of PlayStation’s Horizon series in a lawsuit – as the two companies battle it out in court.
Light of Motiram, developed by Tencent’s Polaris Quest studio, emerged at the end of last year, and its accompanying images – featuring mechanised animal-like creatures and very Aloy like key character art – immediately drew comparisons with Horizon. And Sony agreed, mounting legal action against Tencent, who it accused of copyright and trademark infringement.
Since then, we’ve had a bit of back-and-forth – Tencent accused Sony of seeking an “impermissible monopoly on genre conventions”, a claim Sony called “nonsense” – and Tencent even went as far as to quietly update Light of Motiram’s Steam page to tone down the more “egregious” Horizon similarities. But the lawsuit rumbles on.
Sony wants the court to block Light of Motiram from sale when its legal hearing gets underway next year, but in the interim Tencent has agreed to keep the game out of the spotlight. As reported by TheGamePost, Tencent this week submitted a new California court filing agreeing there will be “no new promotion or public testing of Light of Motiram” while Sony’s injunction request is being argued. This is part of a deal in which Sony will give Tencent more time to respond to its injunction motion.
“SIE requested, and the Tencent Entities agreed, that (a) the extended briefing schedule and later requested hearing date will not be used to argue that SIE delayed in seeking a preliminary injunction,” the filing reads, “(b) there will be no new promotion or public testing of Light of Motiram during the pendency of the Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (c) the Light of Motiram release will not be moved up to before Q4 2027, and (d) the Tencent Entities will not seek expedited discovery in connection with the Motion for Preliminary injunction”.
TheGamePost notes Sony and Tencent have jointly requested the court hearings – covering both Sony’s injunction request and Tencent’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit – be moved to the same day in January next year.
