Horizon Zero Dawn 'rip-off' pulled from Steam after months of legal battles

Light of Motiram's legal battle is over as Tencent and Sony seek a dismissal that prevents any future lawsuits

After months of legal tussles, Sony and Tencent have come to an agreement over Light of Motiram, a futuristic survival co-op game whose reveal immediately drew comparisons to Horizon Zero Dawn. Though the terms of the deal aren't public, Light of Motiram appears to have been delisted from major storefronts such as Steam and the Epic Games Store. Other marketing materials, such as the reveal trailer, have also been pulled from their original sources.

Light of Motiram was announced at the start of 2025, when it was positioned as an action game packed with trendy gameplay mechanics. Tencent's game had it all: base-building, crafting, co-op, gliding, and the hunting of behemoth robots. The apparent protagonist of the game was a red-haired woman donning a cybernetic aboriginal outfit, much like Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy does. Some screenshots released at the time even appeared to recreate iconic moments from Sony's best-selling open-world game.

Making matters worse, Sony had a paper trail that saw Tencent pitching the publisher a mobile Horizon Zero Dawn spin-off with many of the elements later found in Light of Motiram, like crafting mechanics and a focus on multiplayer. Sony brought all of this to court in a lawsuit where the Japanese company accused Tencent of infringing on its intellectual property with a "shameless" clone. In exchange, Sony was seeking $150,000 in statutory damages for each Horizon game. Sony also demanded that Tencent destroy all advertising related to Light of Motiram.

Tencent fired back by arguing that not only was Horizon Zero Dawn generic to begin with, but Light of Motiram was still a title in active development. With a 2027 release date, Tencent said, the end product might be totally different than what Sony believed Light of Motiram to be. Sony's concerns, Tencent posed at the time, were speculative.

A month later, however, Tencent updated Light of Motiram's marketing materials on platforms like Steam to look and sound different than the initial pitch for the game. Visuals were redone and screenshots were scrapped in favor of more generic branding with animal mechs and a description that downplayed Light of Motiram's emphasis on "primal" boss fights. Tencent also later agreed to stop promoting Light of Motiram, and to cease plans for any potential public testing of the game.

And now, a couple of weeks later, the case is coming to an end altogether. As reported by The Game Post, court filings show that Sony and Tencent were asking for the case to be dismissed from court. Specifically, the two game publishers sought a dismissal with prejudice, which would prevent the topic from being dragged to court in the future.

It's unclear if remittance was a part of the deal, but each party will be taking care of their own legal costs. It is also unknown if Light of Motiram might reemerge in the future, perhaps with a different name or retooled to differentiate itself more clearly from Horizon Zero Dawn. For now, though, Tencent's futuristic project appears dead.