People Can Fly reportedly canceled the already paused Project Dagger

People Can Fly

People Can Fly seemingly canceled another in-development game: According to Eurogamer Poland, the developer of Outriders and Bulletstorm got rid of Project Dagger, which it already paused last year.

Dagger was originally a joint project between PCF and Take-Two, but the publisher dropped out in 2022, after which the developer continued the project under the assumption that it could just self-publish it or find another partner. In 2023, the project was largely put on hold and sent back to the drawing board with a small creative team. It seems like this re-evaluation of the project is now at an end – with negative results.

An announcement cited by Eurogamer Poland said that the project’s commercial potential after its redesign was unsatisfactory. 

Its cancellation will result in a tax write-down of around $17.6 million USD, allegedly representing the entirety of the expenses used on the project so far.

This is not the only negative news coming out of PCF recently: Earlier this year, the company laid off employees working on Project Gemini, the studio’s game that has Square Enix attached to it as a publisher. Reportedly, the scale of the project was somewhat reduced after a bit of a rift appeared between the two parties towards the end of 2023.

As far as public knowledge goes, this leaves four triple-A projects in active development at the Polish studio: Gemini for Square Enix, Maverick for Microsoft, and the two self-published titles Victoria and Bifrost, which have a tentative launch window from 2025 to 2026.

In 2023, South Korean publisher and developer KRAFTON – the company behind PUBG – acquired a stake in PCF and now holds 10% of the company’s shares, which makes it the second-largest shareholder behind majority owner Sebastian Wojciechowski. 

Its next annual report is set to be released on April 25, 2024, which is when we can expect a detailed update on the company’s current projects.