Sony is officially suing Tencent for copyright and trademark infringement. The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and accuses Tencent of copying Sony's "Horizon" series of games. This lawsuit filing was first spotted by Reuters in the afternoon of July 28, 2025.
In their filing, Sony claims that the upcoming Light of Motiram game from Tencent is nothing but a "slavish clone" of their Horizon games. Light of Motiram reportedly copies several elements unique to Horizon, which may confuse buyers.
Light of Motiram had a reveal trailer come out about seven months ago now. And looking at the trailer... uh yeah, it is certainly very "inspired" by the Horizon games.
According to Sony's lawsuit, "Tencent executives approached Sony with a pitch: to develop its own Horizon game in collaboration with SIE." This happened in March 2024 at a game conference in San Francisco, California. Sony rejected that pitch and had "considered the matter closed."
Tencent Shanghai contributed to the pitch by Tencent executives in San Francisco requesting that SIE grant Tencent a license in the Horizon intellectual property, wherein they proposed that Aurora Studios would develop a Horizon sequel game under the requested license. After being refused for a license, Tencent Shanghai continued to develop Light of Motiram for publication and distribution in the United States. Tencent Shanghai did so despite Sony's subsequent demand that it cease its infringement, knowing that its continued infringement would harm SIE in this District.
As part of this lawsuit filing, Sony revealed that the Horizon franchise has sold over 38 million copies to date.
