“PCF SA (People Can Fly) Group has notified (…) that it has received a Letter of Intent from Take-Two Interactive to terminate the Development and Publishing Agreement by mutual agreement between the parties. The deal is for Project Dagger, a new action-adventure IP that has been in development for two years under the leadership of the People Can Fly team in New York.Was this stated in the introduction to a press release published by People Can Fly on its official website? A surprising announcement, thus seeing the Polish company dropped by its publisher for reasons not explained here. If Take-Two Interactive is indeed actively breaking up, the press release is clearly careful not to evoke this decision in the background.
For People Can Fly, that means taking over development on its own and expanding into self-publishing, as the statement again explains: “The publisher has also not announced its intention to exercise its option to buy back the intellectual property rights for products produced under the agreement. As such, People Can Fly has retained the intellectual property rights to Project Dagger and, as the sole owner of the rights, is now determined to develop the project itself.“
Sebastian Wojciechowski, chief executive of People Can Fly, seemed to embrace the upheaval, declaring, apparently calm: “I think we’ll part ways on good terms, and I don’t see why we can’t work with Take-Two on another project in the future. We strongly believe in Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continuing to develop it as part of our self-published pipeline. The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focused on completing the combat and game loop, as well as migrating from UE4 to UE5. I know this decision will require additional investment from us, but self-publishing is part of our strategy. Of course, if a new publisher can create a compelling business opportunity, we do not rule out working with it.“
People Can Fly appears to be going through some turbulence following its commercial failures if its CEO declares he is confident about the campaign ahead pioneer, as far as we know, he received no royalties from Square Enix. There are at least seven projects in development, one of which is Square Enix’s – surprisingly – now three self-published People Can Fly that must be strong enough to maintain its new product line, according to the press release. Finally explained: “People Can Fly maintains its recently updated strategy of having the group release one game a year, either in partnership with a publisher or on a self-published model starting in 2024.“.