Weekend Highlights (August 1-2)

Jason Schreier uncovered serious issues with Last Sentinel, Ubisoft decided to shut down the NFT game Champions Tactics, and the wishlist count for Dear Passengers has surpassed 2 million. Here's a rundown of the major events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.

• A few days ago, it came to light that there were mass layoffs at LightSpeed Studios—a Tencent subsidiary, whose US branch is working on the cyberpunk action game Last Sentinel. As discovered by Jason Schreier from Bloomberg shortly after, these cuts stemmed from long-standing problems and high expectations. According to his information, Tencent always wanted LightSpeed Studios to create a project on the scale of GTA. To achieve this, the studio had to recruit industry veterans with lucrative salaries, but this approach led to no good. The team size remained much smaller than that of Rockstar Games, yet production costs climbed to an uncomfortable "several hundred million dollars." Over time, Schreier writes, the American branch of LightSpeed Studios experienced high staff turnover and faced numerous other challenges, including a lack of creative vision and work delays. Consequently, after an unsuccessful playtest of Last Sentinel at the beginning of 2026, Tencent issued an ultimatum to the developers: either significantly improve the game by July or face cancellation. According to Schreier's sources, LightSpeed Studios ultimately failed to make Last Sentinel the game Tencent expected, resulting in the layoffs. The future of Last Sentinel remains unclear. Schreier speculates that the studio may release a pared-down version of the game, but he cannot confirm this.
• It seems Ubisoft's experiment with NFTs has failed. The company announced the imminent closure of Champions Tactics—a tactical RPG with blockchain elements. The game's servers will be shut down on October 30, 2026, two years after its release. In its announcement, Ubisoft did not delve into the reasons for this decision, stating only that it was made "after careful consideration."
• Studio FLEXUS shared new successes of the upcoming cooperative aircraft crew simulator Dear Passengers. As reported by the developers, the game has already made it to 2 million wishlists, landing fifth in the top most anticipated projects on Steam. Dear Passengers achieved this milestone two weeks after its announcement. The exact release date is still unknown, although the game is expected to launch by the end of the year.
• The creators of Dear Passengers aren't the only ones who revealed stats about their game over the weekend. Almost simultaneously, studio Bellring Games announced that the audience for the newly released fantasy extraction action Mistfall Hunter surpassed 500,000 players within two days. Recall that the title debuted on July 30 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series.