People Can Fly, the studio most known for its work on Outriders, has officially cancelled its next big game: Project Dagger. The news was spotted by analyst MauroNL3, who surfaced a financial report from 5 April detailing the cancellation of the game, and its subsequent writeoff.
Per this report, work on Project Dagger was discontinued due to “the result of re-analysis of the development plans for the project” and “in connection with the unsatisfactory results of the evaluation of the scope and commercial potential of the project after redefining the direction of the game’s development.”
In plainer terms, People Can Fly lost faith in the game’s direction (it was announced as a co-op action RPG), and its commercial potential.
Read: Take-Two no longer publishing game from Outriders studio
Notably, the project was in the works for several years prior to its cancellation. In 2022, it was dropped by its publisher, Take-Two Interactive, for unclear reasons. At the time, this split was described as amicable, and People Can Fly announced plans to press on with development.
“We strongly believe in Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continue its development within our self-publishing pipeline,” Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of People Can Fly said at the time. “I’m conscious that this decision will add investments on us, but self-publishing is part of our strategy. Of course, we are not ruling out working with a new publisher if this creates a compelling business opportunity.”
Now, it appears those ambitions have ceased, and Project Dagger has been shelved indefinitely.
People Can Fly will write off the expenses associated with the game’s development, and reduce the company’s 2023 financial results accordingly. The studio will now refocus on its other projects in development – two of which are self-published, and one of which is in the works with Square Enix.
