Having been all but subsumed by Epic Games after the release of Bulletstorm, Polish developer People Can Fly has announced its independence all over again, standing on its own feet like a proud newborn foal, albeit a foal that had already been born once and then climbed back inside for whatever reason.
Bad metaphor.
Ownership of the studio is now back in the hands of the team, which had been rebranded Epic Games Poland in 2013. The move allows the developer to begin work on creating their own games outside of the Epic umbrella, though the two companies are seemingly still working together on a future project.
“We’ve been honored to work with this brilliant group of programmers, artists and designers throughout their history,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney in a press release. “First as a partner using the Unreal Engine, then as a studio within Epic, and now once again as an independent company.”
“We, as a People Can Fly team, are extremely excited about new possibilities ahead of us,” said Wojciechowski. “We’re going to work on a new game, while continuing to partner with Epic and use UE4. We’re grateful to Tim and the whole Epic team for our long and successful collaboration.”
The studio is assisting in development of Epic’s upcoming Fortnite, as well as using Unreal Engine 4 for an entirely new unannounced game. The studio had been working on a Bulletstorm sequel within Epic, until the publisher cancelled the game and moved the Polish studio on to another project.
With People Can Fly having newfound independence and the Bulletstorm IP sitting right in their laps, there’s some glimmer of hope for a return of the face-kicking FPS.