GTA publisher withdraws from People Can Fly project after two years

Take-Two Interactive, publisher of GTA and Borderlands, has pulled out of a development and publishing deal with People Can Fly, the company behind Outriders and Gears of War Judgment.

A financial update from People Can Fly says Take-Two is abandoning the project after two years of work – but development will continue.

Dubbed Project Dagger, the game would be a new action-adventure intellectual property, to which People Can Fly now retains the rights. It appears that Take-Two had the option of purchasing these rights – which it did not exercise.

“I assume we’ll part ways on good terms, and I see no reason why we couldn’t work with Take-Two on another project in the future,” People Can Fly boss Sebastian Wojciechowski said today. .

“We strongly believe in the potential of Project Dagger and are now committed to continuing its development within our self-publishing pipeline. The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focused on closing combat loops and gaming and migrates from UE4 to UE5.

“I’m aware that this decision will make us invest more, but self-publishing is part of our strategy. Of course, we don’t rule out working with a new publisher if it creates an interesting business opportunity.”

Project Dagger is developed by the New York office of People Can Fly. The company employs over 550 people based in Warsaw, Rzeszow, Lodz, Krakow, Newcastle, New York, Chicago, Montreal and Toronto.

People Can Fly currently has six more games in the works, including one to be published by Square Enix and two VR games.

Its most recent release, Outriders, launched to mixed reviews in 2021 but enjoyed a period of popularity on Xbox Game Pass.