People Can Fly, the studio behind Outriders, Bulletstorm, and Gears of War: Judgement, is working on an unannounced project for Microsoft.
On the studio’s website, a letter indicating an agreement between Microsoft and People Can Fly was uploaded, revealing the company will perform under a work-for-hire model based on “the intellectual property rights owned by the Publisher and will be entirely financed by the Publisher when advancing by the Company of the development
works under the milestones.” The document mentions the working title, codename Project Maverick and will be developed with a budget of $30-50 million.
Other than that, there will be a ton of speculation regarding what Project Maverick will be. The last we heard from People Can Fly last year was when Take-Two terminated a deal for Project Dagger, an action-adventure title that was in the works for over two years.
The studio’s last project did reasonably well, given it was a new IP, but Square Enix thought differently, leading to a lack of royalties paid to People Can Fly. In my review of Outriders: Worldslayer, I said that “Outriders Worldslayer is undoubtedly the best version of Outriders but not without issues. The game’s story isn’t anything particularly exciting, and Ereshkigal isn’t a commendable villain, but it helps push the gameplay forward to the better moments. As a solo player, you’ll have some trouble with the new enemies and bosses, but with a friend, it’ll be a lot more fun, so call your friends and work towards the endgame where all the fun lies. The new PAX Points, Ascension Points, and Apocalypse items offer a lot of customization for your character to match your playstyle.”
