People Can Fly, creators of Gears of War: Judgment and Outriders, announced it would be parting ways with Take-Two Interactive in recent financial report. According to the Polish developer, they received a letter from Take-Two detailing their “… intent to terminate the development and publishing agreement by means of mutual understanding between the parties.” This mutual understanding pertains to the development of Project Dagger, new action-adventure IP, which had been in the works by both companies for the past 2 years.
The split will leave People Can Fly as the sole owner of Project Dagger’s intellectual property rights. Regardless, People Can Fly will need to pay back the money Take Two funded towards the development of Project Dagger. However, it all depends on how the game will eventually be released whether the game will be self-published or released with another publisher.
Outside of Project Dagger, the report noted other projects in the works at People Can Fly including Project Gemini, a collaboration with Square Enix, self-published projects Bifrost and Victoria, and Project Red which is in a conceptual stage. The developer also has two VR projects in the works, Projects Green Hell VR and a newer project based on one of People Can Fly’s existing IPs.
“I assume we will part on good terms, and I don’t see reasons why we couldn’t work with Take-Two on some other project in the future,” said Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of People Can Fly in a statement. “We strongly believe in the Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continue its development within our self-publishing pipeline. The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focusing on closing combat and game loops and migrate from UE4 to UE5. I’m conscious that this decision will add investments on us, but self-publishing is part of our strategy. Of course, we are not ruling out working with a new publisher if this creates a compelling business opportunity.”
Despite its unfortunate separation with Take-Two Interactive People Can Fly seeks to uphold its recently strategy of releasing one game per year, whether it be developed “…in cooperation with another publisher or in the self-publishing model starting from 2024.”