People Can Fly lays off 120 employees and cancels development of Project Victoria: Painkiller and Bulletstorm authors in serious trouble

By: Anton Kratiuk | yesterday, 12:59
Flight of fancy: a review of games from the People Can Fly studio A collage of People Can Fly games. Source: People Can Fly

Another well-known studio has announced major problems and related layoffs.

Here's What We Know

Polish studio People Can Fly - the author of excellent shooters Painkiller, Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgment and Outriders - reported that due to internal problems it has to reduce publishing activities and lay off 120 employees.

The company has cancelled development of Project Victoria and is cutting the Project Bifrost team.

In a statement, People Can Fly CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski said that he was sorry to part with 120 talented developers, but due to the pressure of circumstances he had to take this step.

Address by Sebastian Wojciechowski
Sebastian Wojciechowski's address. Source: X

It is not known what kind of game Project Victoria was supposed to be, and not much is known about Project Bifrost.

Recall that in April 2024, People Can Fly studio has cancelled development of ambitious RPG Project Dagger. The creators of Painkiller and Bulletstorm will lose 20 million dollars the ambitious RPG Project Dagger. The project was originally commissioned by Take-Two Interactive, but after two years of production, the company cancelled the agreement, after which People Can Fly continued to develop the game and hoped to release it independently. But after the failure of Outriders, the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic crisis, the company decided to abandon the development of Project Dagger.

Apparently, the Polish studio's top priority will be Project Maverick. According to scrappy information, it will be a PvP-shooter or a game with competitive elements ordered by Microsoft with a budget of $30-50 million.

Source: People Can Fly