Do you remember Last Sentinel? If not, it’s understandable. The title was announced during the VGA’s in December of 2023, with a hyper-graphic teaser trailer. The biggest draws presented for the game at the time was former Grand Theft Auto developers were behind the title, and Last of Us Voice Actor Troy Baker was Performance Director. There is always a game, or two, announced during the event with a big name or two attached and a great trailer that then vanishes from view for years, but it was obvious at the time that Last Sentinel was far from release.
On July 28th, a LinkedIn post from the developer behind the game, Lightspeed LA, confirmed that they had laid off developers as part of “extensive internal reviews and play-testing,” leading to 80 developers losing their jobs. Following this, Bloomberg wrote about the complicated development for the open-world dystopian cyberpunk title, set in Japan.
For starters, apparently Last Sentinel has a far smaller staff than Grand Theft Auto VI. This isn’t really shocking; however, this report affirms that Tencent, which is publishing the title, saw it as a potential competitor to the Grand Theft Auto series, with former Rockstar San Diego Steve Martin leading development. Leadership on the project, for that matter, has been described as “Polarizing”.
Last Sentinel team at Lightspeed LA would then find itself struggling with development for six years. During which time the team consistently failed to meet internal deadlines and delayed the title several times, with estimates suggesting development has cost Tencent Hundreds of Millions of dollars on the project. During a playtest earlier this year, the title recieved mostly negative feedback. The team at Lightspeed LA was then working on an improved Demo until July, which also failed to impress Tencent higher-ups, leading to the above-mentioned terminations.
As it stands currently, Lightspeed LA’s official word is that Last Sentinel is still in development, but is getting a change toward its “creative and development direction,” though Bloomberg seems unsure if the team is set at this point on what form those changes will look like. Most likely, the game is no longer being planned as a competitor to Grand Theft Auto, with it likely no longer being an open-world sandbox title.
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