Outriders Cancellation: Developer Cites Poor Communication with Square Enix

People Can Fly, the Polish game development studio behind titles such as Outriders and Gears of War Judgment, has announced further job cuts following the cancellation of two of its projects: Project Gemini and Project Bifrost.

In a formal statement released by CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski, he explained the difficult decision:
"Today we made a very difficult decision to suspend the development of Project Gemini and Project Bifrost — the relevant current reports have been released to the market."

He continued, "The suspension of the Gemini project is a consequence of the fact that the Publisher has not presented us with a draft of the subsequent content rider to the Publishing Agreement covering the terms and conditions of further milestones on Project Gemini. There has also been a lack of communication from the Publisher regarding their willingness to continue or terminate the project."

"Project Bifrost was suspended due to the above situation and an internal analysis of the Group's cash flow, which indicated no realistic prospects for securing the organizational resources and funds necessary to continue production and release this project."

Wojciechowski concluded by addressing the team’s emotional impact: “As a result, we have to significantly regroup as a studio and scale down our teams, which hurts the most. We wish to express our deepest regret and sadness over how these events have unfolded and our sincere gratitude for everyone's contribution up to this point.”

While the statement does not name the publisher involved in Project Gemini, information on People Can Fly’s official website confirms that Gemini was being developed in partnership with Square Enix, while Bifrost was a self-published title. Square Enix has not yet issued a public response.

This is not the first time Project Bifrost has faced setbacks—the company had previously scaled back development at the end of last year when it laid off 120 employees. Despite these setbacks, People Can Fly continues to work on other titles, including Project Echo with Krafton, Project Delta with Sony, and Gears of War: E-Day alongside Microsoft.

The studio’s most recent launch is [Bulletstorm VR]([ttpp]), a reimagined version of the classic shooter tailored for Meta Quest and PSVR 2 platforms.