Tencent’s Light of Motiram is such a Horizon Zero Dawn rip-off, they’re hard to tell apart

WTF?! We’ve seen plenty of games in the past that have been similar to other big titles. You could go so far as calling some of them clones, or even rip-offs. Then there’s Tencent developer Polaris Quest’s Light of Motiram, a game that looks so similar to Guerrilla’s Horizon adventures you’d be forgiven for assuming it was a new entry in the beloved franchise.

Light of Motiram’s lengthy new trailer certainly gives the impression that it is set in the Horizon universe. There’s the wild jungle, mountain, and desert environments dotted with dilapidated modern buildings, a young, red-haired female protagonist, the post-apocalyptic vibe, and even the music sounds similar. Then the robotic dinosaurs appear and one can imagine Sony’s lawyers rubbing their hands together with glee; the designs are so similar it’s comical. Don’t forget the near-identical weapons, flight and riding mechanics, etc., etc.

There are supposedly some differences between Light of Motiram and Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West. The former includes a freeform building system for players to create their own strongholds and shelters. The survival elements and training the mechanical creatures is said to be much more in-depth. The game is actually described as an “open-world survival crafting game,” as opposed to “blatant rip-off.”

There’s even multiplayer for up to ten people and crossplay: Light of Motiram is coming to PC, PS5, and, strangely, Android and iOS.

It’s fair to say that Motiram is more of a copyright infringement of the Horizon games than Palworld is of Pokémon Go, and that led to a patent infringement lawsuit by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company against creator Poket Pair.

What seems very surprising here, however, is that PlayStation has been publishing trailers for Light of Motiram on its Chinese accounts on Weibo and Bilibili. According to Push Square, PlayStation also mentioned ‘more cooperation’ with the game in the future.

Light of Motiram still doesn’t have a release date, but it has listings on Steam and the Epic Games Store. For those interested, here are the minimum and recommended specs.