People Can Fly to self-publish next game as Take-Two seeks to end partnership
As Take-Two Interactive seemingly moves to pull out of publishing People Can Fly's Project Dagger, the Polish studio will pivot to publish the game itself.
Interesting news has come out of People Can Fly this morning. The Bulletstorm and Outriders development seems to be losing a publisher on one of its upcoming games. People Can Fly had been working for around two years on development of Project Dagger with Take-Two Interactive set to publish the game. However, the Polish-based developer has announced that Take-Two communicated intention to terminate cooperation on the game. With that decision, People Can Fly has announced it will publish Project Dagger itself.
People Can Fly shared details about the cancellation of cooperation with Take-Two Interactive in a statement on its website posted on September 27, 2022. In said statement, People Can Fly claims Take-Two sent “a letter of intent to terminate the development and publishing agreement by means of mutual understanding between the parties. This agreement pertains to Project Dagger, new action-adventure IP, that has been in development for the last 2 years – under the direction of People Can Fly’s team based in New York.”
Source: People Can Fly
As a result of said letter, People Can Fly has, in turn, announced that it will be moving Project Dagger to its self-publishing pipeline and work will continue on the game despite the setback. People Can Fly also signaled that it doesn’t believe its partnership with Take-Two is ending on poor terms, and that the two entities may still be able to work together again in the future.
“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,” CEO of People Can Fly Sebastian Wojciechowski said in the 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.”
People Can Fly’s most recent release was Outriders, which it has continued to work on with Square Enix, even launching the Worldslayer expansion in 2022. Regardless, the crew has a lot of irons in the fire and while Take-Two’s termination of publishing spells misfortune for Project Dagger, it sounds like People Can Fly is ready to roll with the punches. Stay tuned as we await further updates.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, People Can Fly to self-publish next game as Take-Two seeks to end partnership
