Tencent ‘Horizon clone’ pulled from stores as Sony settles lawsuit

Sony has settled its dispute over upcoming Tencent game Light of Motiram, which it accused of being a “slavish clone” of the Horizon series.

According to court docs filed this week (via The Game Post), the two companies have reached a confidential settlement, and it appears that the game has also been delisted from Steam and Epic Games Store.

Sony first filed a lawsuit in California federal court in July, alleging copyright and trademark infringement, and claiming that Light of Motiram was so close to Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West that players could be confused into thinking it’s part of the same series.

Tencent had responded, calling the claims “startling” and accusing Sony of trying to monopolise a part of popular culture. Earlier this month, it halted public testing of the game while the lawsuit played out.

According to this week’s filing, Sony and Tencent have now jointly asked the court to dismiss the case after a confidential settlement was agreed.

The lawsuit will be dismissed with prejudice, which means that the case will be closed and cannot be brought back to court later.

Notably, at the same time as the court filing appearing, Light of Motiram’s product pages on both Steam and the Epic Games Store were removed, potentially suggesting that Tencent could be making changes to the game.

The court docs read: “Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure and the confidential settlement of all parties, Plaintiff Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC and Defendants Tencent America LLC, Proxima Beta U.S. LLC, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Proxima Beta PTE Ltd., and Tencent Technology (Shanghai) Company Ltd., by and through their undersigned counsel of record, hereby stipulate as follows:

“All pending motions are withdrawn and this action is hereby dismissed with prejudice. All parties shall bear their own fees and costs.”