People Can Fly, known from Outriders and Bulletstorm, among others, wants to release its next game itself. Previously, this game, which is known internally as Project Dagger, had a contract with Take-Two. However, the two companies decide to terminate this contract.
The developer says self-publishing games ‘part of our strategy’, which makes it appear that the decision to end the Take-Two deal came from People Can Fly. “I assume we will part ways on good terms and I see no reason why we can’t work with Take-Two on other projects in the future,” said Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of People Can Fly.
The CEO says the company still “strongly believes” in Project Dagger and is “committed” to developing the game. Not many details are known about Project Dagger yet, other than that it is an action-adventure game that is not part of an existing game series and has been in development for two years at the team in New York. The game is still in pre-production. The combat of the game has yet to be completed. The game will also be migrated from Unreal Engine 4 to UE5.
As part of the Take-Two agreement, People Can Fly received funding to develop Project Dagger. How much is not clear. People Can Fly does say that at least part of this money must be repaid. This amount depends on how Project Dagger is released, so independently or in collaboration with another publisher.
People Can Fly was founded in 2002 and was part of Epic Games between 2012 and 2015. It also worked on Bulletstorm. People Can Fly’s most recent game is the online RPG Outriders. In addition to Project Dagger, the company has six projects in development, two of which are for VR devices. From 2024, the company aims to release a game every year. The company now employs 550 people.