Tencent has closed one of their own studios, and alongside it, a AAA game that didn’t make it to a public announcement.
As reported by GamesIndustry.Biz, Team Kaiju was a subsidiary under Tencent’s own TiMi Studio Group. Team Kaiju was working on a AAA multiplayer title since 2020, and worked with former Halo and Battlefield staffers Rosi Zagortcheva and Scott Warner.
TiMi shared this statement:
“As part of this decision, we’ve moved many of our teammates to other projects within Tencent and TiMi and said goodbye to a few talented teammates.
TiMi remains committed to making games for global audiences and will continue to hire and work on our other game projects in North America. We thank every member of Team Kaiju for their effort, passion, and professionalism.”
As you may have read from coverage surrounding the Microsoft – Activision merger, it’s actually Tencent, and not Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo, that is the largest company in the video game industry. Tencent’s claim to fame did not come from competition, but collaboration. The multinational has penned deals with all three console companies, as well as multiple Western 3rd party developers.
Those deals were for distribution of their products in China, but outside of that, Tencent has simply been the biggest investor in the video game industry so far. Tencent has shares studios such as in Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Supercell, Paradox Interactive, and more.
As for TiMi Studios, they may not be as famous as King or Hoyoverse, but they are already one of the most successful Chinese studios around the world. Among their games are Honor Of Kings, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Pokemon Unite.
As successful as these games have been, of course, these are all mobile titles. This unannounced AAA would have been their first major title, that could have come to PC and consoles.
Now, can we say that a game was a wasted opportunity if we don’t even know what it was? It’s certainly easier to see the loss in Embracer shutting down TimeSplitters and their studio with it.
In this case, TiMi’s specialty is online gaming. So this would not have been a new Lies of P, as much as it would have been a new PUBG. While some online games have been facing bad press and reception lately, such as Overwatch 2, there is still an interest in that genre, as seen in the interest in The Finals.
We’ll never know what this game could have been, so like 2010 Korean shooter Huxley, it will be relegated to the lost media graveyard. Gamers can only imagine how good or bad this unannounced title could have been.
At least, this story seems to have a happy ending, as TiMi was able to place most of Team Kaiju’s former staff, and those who didn’t stay moved on to new jobs outside the company.
