Outriders Canceled After Developer, Square Enix Clash

People Can Fly, the Polish studio behind hits like Outriders and Gears of War Judgment, has confirmed further job reductions after canceling two projects: Project Gemini and Project Bifrost.

"Today we made the difficult decision to halt development on Project Gemini and Project Bifrost — the relevant reports have been shared with the market," CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski stated in an official announcement.

"The suspension of Project Gemini follows the publisher's failure to provide a draft amendment to the Publishing Agreement covering subsequent milestone terms, as well as their lack of communication regarding the project's continuation or termination.

"Project Bifrost was halted for similar reasons, combined with a cash flow analysis indicating insufficient organizational resources and funding to complete production and release.

The CEO concluded: "Consequently, we must undergo significant internal restructuring and reduce team sizes — a deeply painful outcome. We extend our sincere regret and gratitude to everyone affected by these developments and thank all team members for their contributions."

While Wojciechowski's statement doesn't name specific publishers involved in the cancellations, the Outriders developer's official site confirms Gemini was being developed with Square Enix, while Bifrost was self-published. Square Enix has not yet commented.

The studio previously cut 120 jobs late last year as part of scaling down operations. It continues collaboration with Krafton and Sony on Project Echo and Delta, respectively, and with Microsoft on Gears of War: E-Day.

People Can Fly's latest release is Bulletstorm VR, an updated virtual reality version of the classic shooter for Meta Quest and PSVR 2.