Lords of the Fallen 2’s new developer cut loose after less than a year

Lords of the Fallen's 2 most recent co-developer Defiant Studios has been cut loose by CI Games

CI Games announced in a statement this week that it was cutting loose Defiant Studios, a New York-based studio it brought on to partner up for upcoming action RPG Lords of the Fallen 2 only last year. It has decided instead to finish the game itself in-house – but the way it’s played out doesn’t sound pretty.

The Polish studio announced the parting of the ways in a statement this week (translated for Eurogamer by Daniel Kłosiński), in which it cited “inadequate execution by Defiant” of “a key work stage” as the reason. The studio added that “the quality of the work was lower than expected by the company, as precisely described in the agreement, despite three calls to improve the quality of this stage of work”.

So, it doesn’t appear that this was just a case of artistic differences.

Defiant Studios has since responded, and seems less than pleased with the reasons CI Games provided for the split.

According to Eurogamer, David Grijns, founder and managing director of Defiant, has said “We categorically disagree with the portrayal of Defiant Studios made by CI Games”, adding that “the team that was working on CI Games’ project was comprised of exceedingly talented developers whose work we fully stand behind”.

Role-play more: best RPGs on PC

He further stated that his team “knows how to build quality games”, pointing to their involvement in titles Far Cry 5, Just Cause 3, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, plus others as evidence of this. Due to contractual confidentiality reasons, he was unable to expand any further on this topic.

It looks like the title is once again somewhat rudderless, news that will likely disappoint fans of the first game, given that its sequel has already hit several significant roadblocks in the last few years. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before Lords of the Fallen 2 is released and we’re Harkyn back to the good old times.