Tencent's cyberpunk rival to Grand Theft Auto is in trouble as its developer lays off 80 people

Tencent's ambitious attempt to build a rival to Grand Theft Auto appears to be floundering, as Last Sentinel developer Lightspeed LA has laid off 80 people following the publisher's loss of confidence in the project.

If you're not familiar with Last Sentinel, that would be forgivable. The cyberpunk open world has been in development for six years and was announced at The Game Awards in 2023. But doubts began to circulate about the state of the Last Sentinel after a suite of promotional videos published last year failed to show any footage of the game itself.

Now, as reported by Bloomberg, it appears we'll be lucky to see any of Last Sentinel at all. Following multiple delays and at least one partial project reboot, publisher Tencent has opted not to move forward with the project, and as a result Lightspeed Entertainment has laid off dozens of employees.

As Bloomberg details, Last Sentinel appears to have been in trouble for some time. The game was built as a glossy open-world affair set in a vertical city in a cyberpunk Japan, featuring destructible environments alongside the usual GTA-ish mix of driving and shooting.

However, the game was being built by a much smaller team than Rockstar used for its latter-day open worlds, and according to anonymous sources at Lightspeed, that team had to contend with an unclear vision and a "polarizing" approach to management by former Rockstar San Diego studio director Steve Martin.

After a poor playtest and an unimpressive demonstration to Tencent executives earlier this year, Lightspeed apparently scrambled to assemble an improved version of Last Sentinel. But whatever the team put together apparently wasn't enough, and Tencent has washed its hands of the project.

To be clear, Last Sentinel hasn't been cancelled yet. Lightspeed is still working on the project without Tencent's backing. But the studio is planning to "shift the creative and development direction" of the game "to meet player expectations". Given players were set up to expect a cyberpunk open-world rival to Grand Theft Auto, it's hard to see how Lightspeed can square this given the challenges that lie ahead.