Legal Firestorm Ignites: Sony Escalates War Against Tencent Over Alleged ‘Horizon’ IP Infringement

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has significantly intensified its legal campaign against Chinese tech and gaming behemoth Tencent Holdings Ltd., filing a motion for a preliminary injunction in a United States District Court. This aggressive legal maneuver aims to immediately halt pre-release promotion and potentially further development of Tencent’s upcoming open-world survival game, Light of Motiram, which SIE vehemently asserts is a “slavish clone” of its highly successful Horizon franchise, specifically the landmark title Horizon Zero Dawn.

The high-stakes intellectual property lawsuit has captivated the global gaming industry since its initial filing in July 2025. Sony’s latest filing on October 15, 2025, underscores the company’s commitment to Intellectual Property Protection and its alarm over the perceived threat to one of its most valuable first-party IPs, the Horizon series developed by Guerrilla Games.

The Core of the Dispute: Alleged ‘Slavish Copying’

SIE’s initial complaint detailed numerous striking similarities between the two titles, ranging from the overall post-apocalyptic world setting—where primitive tribal cultures clash with advanced robotic wildlife—to specific character designs. The motion for a preliminary injunction takes this accusation a step further, specifically seeking to bar Tencent from utilizing key elements:

• A character resembling Horizon’s protagonist, Aloy: described in court documents as a “fierce tribal warrior huntress characterized by fiery red hair.”
• Other specific visual elements, storyline components, and even a melody alleged to be unduly similar to two compositions from the Horizon Zero Dawn original soundtrack.

Sony argues that the similarities are so “obvious and pervasive” that the public and media have consistently and loudly decried Light of Motiram as a “major Horizon rip off” and an “obvious knock off” since its announcement in November 2024.

Tencent’s Defense and Sony’s Rebuttal

In a prior filing, Tencent had motioned to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the elements in question are merely “well-trodden” or “time-honored tropes” of popular culture, attempting to position Sony’s action as an “improper attempt to fence off a well-trodden corner of popular culture.”

Sony has since launched a powerful rebuttal, dismissing Tencent’s defense as “nonsense.” SIE’s opposition to the motion to dismiss and the subsequent preliminary injunction request assert that Tencent is engaging in a “shell game” with its numerous subsidiaries—Tencent America, Proxima Beta U.S., and Tencent Holdings—to evade liability for the alleged Copyright Infringement Lawsuit. Furthermore, SIE argues that the “damage is done, and it continues,” pointing to the consumer confusion already generated by the promotional material, which jeopardizes the continued success of the Horizon franchise, including its current expansion plans, such as the confirmed film adaptation.

The Immediate Threatened Injury Argument

A key hurdle in a preliminary injunction request is demonstrating “immediate threatened injury.” Tencent has countered Sony’s urgency by noting that Light of Motiram’s release date has been quietly pushed back from late 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2027—an action Sony claims was a calculated move after the initial lawsuit was filed, calling it a deliberate attempt to purge Horizon-like content from the game’s public-facing Steam page.

However, Sony’s legal team, backed by sworn declarations from high-ranking PlayStation and Guerrilla executives, argues that the loss of control over its valuable Video Game IP and the ongoing consumer confusion is reason enough to grant the injunction now. They stress that continued promotion of the alleged knock-off title inflicts irreparable harm on the goodwill and reputation of the Aloy character and the entire PlayStation brand.

Guerrilla Games Studio Director Jan-Bart van Beek stated in a sworn declaration that the confusion caused by Light of Motiram promotions will harm the growth of the Horizon franchise, cementing the severity of the alleged infringement from the perspective of the original creator.

What This Means for the Gaming Industry Legal Battle

The court, presided over by Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, is scheduled to hold a hearing on the preliminary injunction gaming motion on November 20, 2025, in San Francisco. A decision could dramatically reshape the landscape of this Gaming Industry Legal Battle by late November or early December.

• If the injunction is granted, Tencent would be forced to immediately pull all promotional materials, cease any development utilizing the contested IP elements, and potentially redesign the protagonist and other core game features.
• If denied, the case will proceed to discovery, where both sides will gather evidence, a lengthy and costly process that could last for years.

This case serves as a crucial test of Intellectual Property Protection in the globalized gaming market, especially concerning the growing trend of open-world survival games. The outcome will be closely watched by publishers and developers worldwide, as it will establish a significant legal precedent for what constitutes “fair use” of popular genre tropes versus outright Copyright Infringement in the Gaming Industry.