Tencent’s GTA Rival Last Sentinel Reportedly Shut Down After Six Years

Tencent’s ambitious open-world crime game Last Sentinel has reportedly suffered a major setback after six years of development, with around 80 employees losing their jobs at Lightspeed LA, the California studio working on the project.

Bloomberg reports that Tencent decided not to move forward with the current version of Last Sentinel after repeated delays, rising costs, weak internal feedback, and concerns about the game’s overall quality.

Lightspeed LA started development around 2020 under Steve Martin, the former head of Rockstar San Diego, with plans to create a cyberpunk crime game set in a science-fiction version of Tokyo. The project featured a female protagonist, a large vertical city, driving, exploration, combat, and the freeform gameplay usually linked with Rockstar titles.

Development Problems Hit Last Sentinel

The studio hired experienced developers from Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Blizzard, and other major companies, while offering high salaries to compete for talent during the gaming industry’s hiring boom.

However, the team struggled with an unclear creative direction, slow decisions, management problems, missed deadlines, and a budget that reportedly reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tencent gave the studio until July to produce a much stronger build after an internal playtest received almost entirely negative feedback. Todd Papy, known for his work on God of War, joined during the final months to improve combat, missions, and other important systems.

The project still failed to reach the expected visual quality, polish, and gameplay standard of a serious Grand Theft Auto rival.

Tencent says Lightspeed LA remains open and plans to change Last Sentinel’s creative direction, which suggests the company has not completely abandoned the game. However, the layoffs and reported shutdown leave its future uncertain.