Tencent Halts Last Sentinel After 6 Years, Cutting 80 Jobs at Lightspeed LA
Updated
Updated · Wccftech · Jul 31
Tencent Halts Last Sentinel After 6 Years, Cutting 80 Jobs at Lightspeed LA
3 articles · Updated · Wccftech · Jul 31
Summary
Roughly 80 staff were laid off at Irvine-based Lightspeed LA this week after Tencent decided not to move forward with Last Sentinel, the open-world crime game pitched as a GTA rival.
A July ultimatum followed a badly received playtest earlier this year, with testers reportedly calling the game not fun and the studio failing to deliver a substantially improved build.
Six years of development had already consumed hundreds of millions of dollars, but sources cited weak creative direction, slow decisions and missed deadlines under founder Steve Martin.
Tencent publicly disputed that the project is fully dead, saying it will shift Last Sentinel's creative direction and that Lightspeed LA remains open, leaving some version of the game still possible.