Tencent's new survival game is a hybrid of Horizon Zero Dawn and Palworld, but it has an interesting question: "Why can't humans kill God?"
Tencent has entered the open-world survival game market with a game called Light of Motiram. The game is set in a lush jungle world dominated massive machine monsters known as--wait for this-- Mechanimals.
Light of Motiram is clearly influenced by Horizon Zero Dawn in terms of its visual style. On the gameplay side, it also borrows heavily, as players can bond with various types of mechanimals and customize and level them up. They can then put them to work in various tasks, such as exploration, combat, or simply gathering and building. The boss fights are reminiscent of Monster Hunter, as they unlock new crafting materials and recipes, and tell more about how the world of Motiram came to be in its current state.
Tencent has emphasized the "realistic physics simulator" of the game, which includes everything from the materials used in its "freeform construction system" to the weather. A falling tree can kill you quickly, and metal armor should not be worn in a lightning storm.
I'm not certain we need another open world survival game. The similarities to Horizon are not subtle. Even so, it looks quite promising. Tencent's apparent determination to enter the genre is intriguing in itself. The Chinese conglomerate, a quiet superpower with unlimited resources, can put more or less all of its resources into the project. It's not a sure thing, but it certainly doesn't hurt. As we've seen in games like Palworld and other successful formulas, originality does not always matter.
Beyond all that, a game that asks the question "Why can't humans kill God?" is also worth playing. This question will immediately spark my curiosity, particularly if it's not framed as a rhetorical but rather a practical question. Why? Light of Motiram may not be able to answer that question, but it could be interesting to see how it fares.
It will be interesting to see if Sony is interested in Light of Motiram. It's pretty obvious that the game was inspired by Pokemon. It remains to be determined if this will be enough for any action to be taken. For example, when Nintendo sued Pocketpair it wasn't because Palworld looked like Pokemon but rather over allegations of patent infringement. Tencent isn't setting any new standards in terms of creativity, but whether or not it has done anything that can be legally acted upon is another question.
Light of Motiram is free to play and supports solo play, multiplayer up to 10 players on PC or mobile devices. The release date has not been announced, but the game is available on Steam for wishlisting.
Comments