Dying Light developer Techland has reportedly cancelled two in-development projects, allegedly adding to the pile of dead games which had already swelled today thanks to sweeping layoffs and cancellations at Xbox studios.
Polish business outlet Puls Biznesu reports (via machine translation) that Tencent reported a loss of around $37 million (USD, converted from Polish Zloty) at the end of its last fiscal year (thanks, GameWatcher). This is attributed to "decisions to discontinue further work on two projects."
It's unclear what projects were cancelled, but we do know one of the projects that Techland was working on. In 2022, the studio announced an open-world fantasy RPG, with its development team helmed by several CD Projekt Red veterans taking up directorial and leadership roles.
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I did notice that Karolina Stachyra, previously narrative director on this fantasy RPG, left the studio last year according to LinkedIn updates. However, quest director Bartosz Ochman, hired in the same wave, is still at the studio, again according to his LinkedIn bio.
A scan of the studio's updated job listings, some of which do notably indicate that they're attached to the Dying Light pipeline, doesn't exactly scream "we're making a fantasy RPG," but I can't find a smoking gun clearly indicating whether this project is dead or alive either. At most, there are listings for open-world game design roles that don't call out Dying Light, but open-world stuff is kind of Techland's thing and these postings could easily be outdated, so that isn't very definitive.
I've reached out to Techland for comment on these reported cancellations and the status of this fantasy RPG.
At the time of this fantasy RPG's reveal, Techland CEO Paweł Marchewka said: "Our ambition is to introduce a brand new IP that is vastly different from what we have been doing for the past several years. We want to create a fully next-gen experience. A new fantasy epic set in a sprawling open world, fueled by the skills and experience we have gained as a team over the years, infused with new ideas, passion, and creativity."
Techland has not released a full, new game since 2022's Dying Light 2. The company's next release, Dying Light: The Beast, which started as Dying Light 2 DLC but ended up becoming a standalone game, is due August 22.
10 years later, the original Dying Light is getting a chunky visual upgrade with audio improvements this week, but it's not a "complete overhaul or remaster."
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