After Sony rejected a Horizon Zero Dawn collab, Tencent tried to pitch a new The Last of Us game instead: "I was confused"

Nobody outside Naughty Dog has made another The Last of Us game, but at least one company has reportedly pitched Sony to do so. According to court documents in Sony's lawsuit against the conglomerate, Tencent attempted and failed to acquire the license for a project, after another pitch related to Horizon was also rejected.

Back in July, Sony filed a lawsuit against Tencent over Light of Motiram, alleging that the game is a "slavish clone" that infringes on the Horizon IP. Tencent is pushing to have the case dismissed, leading to a fresh opposition filing from Sony, containing more information on their fraught relationship.

The latest insight, from The Game Post, includes comments by Olivier Courtemanche, the head of mobile at PlayStation Studios, who provides a timeline of previous meetings between the two corporations. According to him, Tencent attempted to obtain sign-off on a Horizon game, known as Project Z, in early 2024, when speaking to Sony representatives at that year's DICE Summit and GDC.

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Tencent and Aurora Studios would've handled the prospective work, but the notion was turned down on April 8, 2024. In May, Tencent attempted to re-negotiate. "The email stated that 'For [Aurora Studios], Horizon was an IP that they were confident in adapting not only due to their deep passion for the game, but also given some of the parallels and points of connection to skillsets they have perfected while working on Project Z,'" Courtemanche states.

There was a pivot, then, towards something set in the realms of The Last of Us, as Courtemanche flew out to Shenzhen, China, to hear Tencent and Aurora’s ideas for that. He alleges the pitch went from a game adjacent to Joel and Ellie and the Cordyceps right back to Aloy and the mechanical dinosaurs.

"I recall the slide featured a female character with costume design resembling Horizon's mix of tribal clothing and metal armor, and a robot/animal hybrid resembling a Horizon robotic animal," Courtemanche’s comments read. "Now that I have reviewed the promotional materials released for Light of Motiram, I believe that these images contained assets from the Light of Motiram game. I was confused by the slide given that we had rejected a potential Horizon collaboration and thought we were there to discuss The Last of Us, among other opportunities."

It appears communications then collapsed entirely, leading to the present situation. That Sony humored outsourcing The Last of Us is a curious wrinkle, even if nothing's emerged from it just yet. As Naughty Dog continues work on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, perhaps Sony's indulging in other methods of bringing more Cordyceps-infected to the world. Whatever the case, this is getting messier.

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