Outriders Dev Plans To Make Smaller AA Games For Annual Releases

People Can Fly isn’t giving up on bigger games, but wants to tackle smaller projects, too.

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Polish developer People Can Fly, responsible for recent looter-shooter Outriders, announced a change in strategy to shift towards smaller AA games in new genres. The studio won’t abandon its bigger triple-A projects but instead hopes to have one new release annually beginning in 2024.

The studio behind Outriders, Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgement, and Painkiller noted its AA games would maintain the same quality of its larger projects but will be “characterized by a shorter development time, lower budget and smaller scope.” With Outriders’ development cycle taking six years, the studio wants to launch smaller titles in-between those longer timelines.

Additionally, People Can Fly stated it will look for new studio acquisition possibilities or partnerships with other teams. The initial goal is to ship at least one new game every year, starting in 2024, as reported by Gameindustry. Back in April, the studio acquired Phosphor, best known for 2011’s superhero game Awakened.

The company still has several games in development right now, including unannounced triple-A titles for Square Enix and Take-Two Interactive. People Can Fly is also busy with Outriders’ future, previously teasing “significant expansions with self-contained stories.”

As for Outriders, it’s still hard to judge how the project faired for the studio and if it met expectations. According to publisher Square Enix, the game’s day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass “has gotten off to a good start as a new IP” — the game surpassed 3.5 million players during its first month. In addition, “the digital sales ratio for the title have been very high, and the number of active users has also beaten […] expectations.”

However, the Polish studio itself later clarified that it seems Outriders hasn’t even come close to performing as expected (the studio estimated sales between two and three million copies) and People Can Fly has yet to receive any royalties for the game’s sales. This means the cost of production, promotion, and distribution most likely wasn’t covered during the game’s first quarter.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/outriders-smaller-games-annual-launch/