Tencent shuts US video games studio Team Kaiju — source

Josh Ye
·1 min read
Logo of Tencent is seen at its booth at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing

By Josh Ye

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese tech giant Tencent has shut down one of its U.S. video games studios that has been considered a key part of its global expansion plan to become a competitive game developer for the Western market, a source familiar with the matter said.

The Shenzhen-based company pulled the plug on U.S. game studio Team Kaiju in June and its staff have been reassigned to work on another game under Tencent, said the person, declining to be named because the information is not public.

Team Kaiju worked on a big-budget multiplayer game under the leadership of experienced game designer Scott Warner before it was shut. Tencent recruited Warner in 2020, which was seen as a big hire at the time as Warner was a director for hits such as “Halo 4”.

Warner left Team Kaiju in April, according to his LinkedIn account. Team Kaiju's website is no longer active.

Tencent declined to comment.

The shutdown comes as the Chinese company is making a push to build studios overseas and develop games aimed at the overseas markets.

Earlier this month Tencent unveiled its most ambitious title for consoles named the Last Sentinel, developed by about 200 people at its Lightspeed LA game studio.

Tencent is widely known for developing popular mobile games such as PUBG Mobile that are popular among Chinese players and cheaper to developer.

Eurogamer.net first reported on the shutdown of the Team Kaiju.

(The story has been refiled to fix typos in paragraph 1 and 7)

(Reporting by Josh Ye in Hong Kong; editing by David Evans)