Horizon Zero Dawn has a cool aesthetic. The idea of robotic animals in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has resurfaced as a variety of comparatively primitive tribes that hunt said creatures for resources is a fabulous concept, but one that seldom lends itself well to compelling storytelling and characters.
But Guerilla struck gold with this franchise, building on the heavy and oppressive technology found in Killzone before combining it with a lusciously oversaturated open world where every corner you turned was an opportunity to gawp at the scenery. I found it too busy as I bounced off both games when the unfolding narrative failed to match the vibrant nature of its visuals. On the surface, however, Horizon Zero Dawn remains a graphical marvel.
Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aesthetic Makes It Ripe For Copycats
This brings us to Light of Motiram, a recently revealed Polaris Quest and Tencent title that is ripping off Horizon Zero Dawn so blatantly that I can’t believe it has a Steam page. When I first saw it doing the rounds, I thought it was nothing but a concept trailer with a small chance of ever getting off the ground, but to see it’s backed by a major publisher and appears to have a decent development budget blew my mind. How on earth does this exist?
Let’s take a look at the website first, which presents us with a gorgeous piece of key art and a stirring musical backdrop which sounds eerily like Horizon Zero Dawn’s opening theme. It clearly wants you to look across its saturated wilderness and have your breath taken away, but I can’t ignore how everything rips from Guerilla’s blockbuster with no rhyme or reason.
You will seemingly be able to recruit robot animals and essentially have them as pets or cutesy companions in battle. I bet this will be a way to show off to your friends if the game ends up having any gacha mechanics.
You play as a hunter of sorts, a character you create who exists as a member of a tribe that must venture into the wilderness to gather resources and befriend robotic creatures. Such a machine can be seen standing alongside our character, a cute deer-like animal with pastel pink colours dotted across its design. The character is also dressed like Aloy with a similar assortment of frills, but I think the most blatant plagiarism can be seen in her bow and the blue and orange ropes that decorate the body. The colour scheme, grey and blue design of every robot, and how the world presents itself is so Horizon it hurts.
Scroll down the website, and you’ll be treated to the CG reveal trailer and a trio of designs for robots that you can also view and rotate the models for. Light of Motiram has made a point to give most of them different colours, and features a gorilla bot which we’ve not seen before in Horizon, but even the intent here is so deeply rooted in copying a more impressive work via the buck and bull.
But Light Of Motiram Doesn’t Play Anything Like Horizon Zero Dawn
From what I can see from gameplay however, this isn’t going to play much like Zero Dawn or Forbidden West. Combat seems to focus on locking onto enemies and fighting them like you would in a soulslike, while different weapons can change the flow of battle, as can any robotic companions you summon from the ether. These can be customised with weapons and a few cosmetic options too, so the focus is on curating your tribal identity rather than chasing a big, overarching story. If it’s an online experience, it won’t have a traditional narrative conclusion.
I would be very surprised if Sony’s lawyers aren’t currently eyeing this game up and trying to figure out their options. It seems too blatant to not be crossing some sort of line.
There will also be plenty of building, resource gathering, crafting, and teaming up with your friends if going it alone isn’t your style. Moment-to-moment gameplay couldn’t be more different to Horizon, but it cheapens its entire identity by ripping off every visual hallmark it has. That is all anybody is going to notice, immediately dooming the title’s reputation before anyone has a chance to play it.
During development did nobody look at a monitor and think this might not be the best idea? Scratch that, they know exactly what they are doing, and are banking on the controversy being a selling point. It’s just a crying shame that any novel ideas Light of Motiram might have had are now scattered to the wind.
It reminds me of Palworld, and why I decided never to touch the Pocketpair developed title, because whether you side with it or not, its existence leans so heavily on the aesthetics of Pokemon. Playing it makes me feel dirty, and that my time would be better placed supporting something more daring, original, and more likely to push the medium forward. This Horizon rip-off is no different, and speaks to a lack of creativity across the entire experience that it needed to stoop to such a level.
Horizon Forbidden West again follows Aloy as she navigates a post-catastrophic world populated by mechanical fauna. She must travel west into unknown territory in order to find a GAIA backup and save the planet’s biosphere.