If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Sony’s Horizon series of games should probably be blushing brightly and curling up into a cute little embarrassed ball at the introduction of Light of Motiram, an upcoming multiplayer open-world survival title from Tencent-owned developer Polaris Quest that bears a pretty striking resemblance to the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West.
“Set in a lush world dominated by mechanical beasts, Light of Motiram marries key aspects of the survival genre with a dynamic, impactful combat system and saga-worthy boss fights. Rebuild a new civilization and battle, befriend and raise various mechanimals alone or with friends in a sprawling hostile world.”
Motiram is promising plenty of game for survival fans to sink their teeth into, including an expansive map with multiple biomes that have their own unique resources, the ability to tame and improve mechanimals for duties like harvesting or combat, and a physics-based freeform building engine that allows for some new base-building. Players will also have to consider some more realistic pitfalls such as trees falling on friends, making sure an indoor fire has a smoke vent, or being careful not to wear metal in a lightning storm.
Finally, monstrous mechanical beasts will feature as the primary progression paths, with new recipes and materials gathered from felling the massive bosses on offer with the use of active combat, careful pet management, and exploitation of elemental weaknesses.
Motiram is set to make a free-to-play release on PC, mobile, and PlayStation 5 sometime next year, which is where its visual style and setting is drawing the most criticism, as PS5 gamers have lambasted a gameplay video’s comments with accusations that call the title a Horizon ripoff or just generally uninspired to begin with. “Looks like a dozen well known IP’s blended [sic] into new product, Or if you fed AI a dozen IP’s with a prompt of ‘create a new game based on these 12 IP’s,'” snipped one such comment.
Of course, these accusations strike pretty familiar with another popular survivalbox title, and reading through the features list, this one seems like a melange of ARK’s Tek setting, Valheim’s survival mechanics, and any MMO title that features big world bosses in it – a stew that some gamers are interested in trying if other responses to the trailer are to be believed. Judge for yourself in the video below or in a persual of its Steam page.
