People Can Fly Splits From Epic Games, Partnership Continues

The Polish studio known for its work on Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgement has regained its independence from Epic Games.

Polygon reports that People Can Fly is officially back and is no longer lead by Epic Games. Back in 2007, Epic Games made a significant investment in People Can Fly around the time they worked on the PC port of the first Gears of War. Afterwrads, People Can Fly helped Epic Games develop Gears 2. In 2013, People Can Fly was rebranded Epic Games Poland. Since then, they worked on Gears of War: Judgment and Fortnite, a sandbox survival game. Prior to their dealings with Epic Games, People Can Fly made the Painkiller series. While they have regained their independence from Epic Games, the two companies remain on very amicable terms.

"We, as a People Can Fly team, are extremely excited about new possibilities ahead of us," said People Can Fly director Sebastian Wojciechowski. "We're going to work on a new game, while continuing to partner with Epic and use Unreal Engine 4."

The same day People Can Fly became Epic Games Poland in 2013, studio founder Adrian Chmielarz left the company to form The Astronauts development team, which would go on to make The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Handing the reins back to People Can Fly's Warsaw-based crew is apparently a decision that Epic Games supports, as the studio will continue to work with them on Fortnite. We have a feeling this was done to let People Can Fly do their own games as Fortnite's development is starting to come to an end (it's still billed for a 2015 release on PC)