Take-Two drops Just Cause 3 director’s ‘groundbreaking adventure game’

Take-Two Interactive has terminated its agreement to publish a self-claimed “groundbreaking action-adventure title” by People Can Fly.

The Outriders and Bulletstorm developer confirmed the news in a statement on Tuesday, stating that it “has received from Take-Two Interactive a letter of intent to terminate the development and publishing agreement by means of mutual understanding between the parties”.

The agreement was for Project Dagger, a “new action-adventure IP” which has been in development for the past two years at the developer’s New York studio.

This appears to be the same project that was announced in July 2020 as a “highly ambitious, groundbreaking action-adventure title” led by Just Cause 3 director Roland Lesterlin.

According to the studio, Take-Two has “not declared the intention to exercise its option to buy-out the intellectual property rights to the products produced under the agreement”.

This means People Can Fly can continue to make the game, and has stated that it is “now determined to grow the project on its own”.

In a statement on the termination, People Can Fly CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski said: “I assume we will part on good terms, and I don’t see reasons why we couldn’t work with Take-Two on some other project in the future.

“We strongly believe in the Project Dagger’s potential and are now committed to continue its development within our self-publishing pipeline. The game is still in pre-production – our team is now focusing on closing combat and game loops and migration from UE4 to UE5.

Further reading

Just Cause 3 director to lead ‘groundbreaking adventure game’ at People Can Fly

People Can Fly announces New York project

“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.”

People Can Fly claims that Project Dagger is one of seven titles currently under development across its nine studios. It also cites Gemini (a new project it’s working on with Square Enix), a concept project called Red, two VR projects and two games it plans to self-publish named Bifrost and Victoria.