Take-Two pulls out of ‘Outriders’ developer’s next game, 2 years into development

The developer has also stated that it is “now determined to grow the project on its own"

GTA and Borderlands publisher Take-Two Interactive has terminated its development and publishing agreement for People Can Fly’s next title, two years into the game’s development.

People Can Fly, the developer behind the 2021 co-op RPG shooter Outriders, revealed in a financial update that Take-Two has terminated its agreement to publish its upcoming action-adventure title, codenamed Project Dagger.

According to the developer, Take-Two has “not declared the intention to exercise its option to buy-out the intellectual property rights to the products produced under the agreement,” meaning that People Can Fly retains the IP rights on Project Dagger.

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The developer has also stated that it is “now determined to grow the project on its own,” and People Can Fly CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski didn’t rule out working with Take-Two again in the future.

“We strongly believe in Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continue its development within our self-publishing pipeline,” said Wojciechowski. “The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focusing on closing combat and game loops and migrate from UE4 to UE5.

Outriders Worldslayer. Credit: People Can Fly

“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.”

Project Dagger is one of seven games currently in development across People Can Fly’s nine studios, which also includes a project being worked on in collaboration with Square Enix called Gemini, a concept project codenamed Red as well as two VR projects called Bifrost and Victoria that the developer plans to self-publish.

People Can Fly is perhaps best known as the developer behind Outriders, a game that received something of a mixed critical reception – although publisher Square Enix noted that it saw a successful launch thanks to Xbox Game Pass.

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Elsewhere in gaming, HBO has released the first trailer for The Last Of Us starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

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