Details about an epic-looking upcoming sci-fi adventure game just dropped. The images and teaser trailer depict a post-apocalyptic world in which humans in primitive-style garb battle giant dinosaur-like robots while sweeping orchestral music plays. It all seems a little familiar. But wait, this isn’t the next Horizon game from Guerrilla. Oh, no, no. This is an initial look at a game from a Tencent subsidiary called Polaris Quest.
Guerrilla and Sony don’t exactly hold a monopoly on tamable robot dinosaurs or open-world crafting games. But at first glance, Light of Motiram is a pretty blatant Horizon ripoff. It mimics Guerilla’s art style and animations, right down to the abundant lens flares. One image shows a trio of human characters using bows and spears to tackle a mammoth-style machine. Even the game’s logo font and description ape that of Horizon’s — Light of Motiram is about humanity’s attempt to “rebuild from the dawn of a new primitive era.”
There are some differences, in fairness. Here, you can construct your own shelters, while trained “Mechanimals” can help you in combat. There’s co-op support for up to 10 players as well. While Guerrilla is working on a multiplayer game, the recent Lego Horizon Adventures spinoff is the only Horizon game to date that features co-op.
In one sense, fans of the Horizon series will understand why it’s apt that the games seem to have effectively been cloned. We’ll have to wait to see just how egregiously Polaris Quest has copied Aloy’s adventures. Light of Motiram doesn’t have a release window as yet, but the seemingly free-to-play title is coming to Steam and the Epic Games Store. Unless Sony slaps Tencent with a cease-and-desist first, that is.