Nintendo had to deal with a recent saga with Pokemon clone Palworld, and many online players have said that Palworld outright ripped off Nintendo with its adventure game full of cutesy creatures that players can catch and train.
Now, it looks like Guerilla Games and Sony will have this same problem with the recently announced Light of Motiram from Polaris Quest (a Tencent subsidiary), which looks an awful lot like PlayStation’s Horizon Zero Dawn series.
Horizon Zero Dawn vs. Light of Motiram
Light of Motiram still has no release date, but it’s now available to wishlist on Steam and the Epic Game Store.
The official description reads:
“Join us on an epic journey as we explore a world of wonders and conquer survival challenges. Explore, craft, and make a living in the large open-world overrun by colossal machines. Defy the machination, survive with mechanimals!”
Though the story is also pretty vague based on the announcement trailer, it does look like an AI was responsible for destroying all the humans, and the machines took the form of animals so the natural world could still flourish.
Is This a Ripoff?
Already, many fans have been comparing and contrasting images from Horizon Zero Dawn and Light of Motiram, and it’s fair to say that many of the elements are definitely similar. Besides the primitive humans living among the machine animals with white PC parts, Motiram also has the same light indication for when a machine is hostile (red) and when it is more docile (blue).
Though earlier Horizon games were more limited with how players could interact with the machines, future series did diversify how they traveled from being able to fly or skim the water. Motiram may be the first in the series, but all the mechanimals in this game can already travel like the machines in the latter Horizon titles.
Even the choice of music for the trailer could be mistaken for a Horizon trailer.
But It Has New Things, Right?
Despite Palworld being dubbed a clone of Pokemon, the game still added some elements that weren’t present in the original—and it looks like Motiram did the same thing.
Video Games Chronicle has noted that Motiram does have some elements missing from Horizon games, like the ability to play co-op multiplayer. Like Palworld, it looks like players can also fortify their bases with scrap built from different machines.
click to enlargeCombat is also a different animal from Motiram. While Aloy mostly has her multi-purpose bow, which she can alternate fire with, Motiram's weapons look like cyber-fied RPG weapons from souls like games like giant hammers and sword/shield combos.
At best, Motiram copies Horizon in terms of setting and visuals, but the gameplay looks like it’s taking a leaf out of Monster Hunter’s book.
For now, some players are urging Guerilla to take legal action with Motiram before it goes too far, but no official announcements have been made at this point.
No release date has been set for Light of Motiram.
For more articles like this, take a look at our Horizon Zero Dawn remake page.