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It sounds like Lords of the Fallen 2 is not dead, as developer and publisher CI Games has announced it was still working on the sequel to the 2014 hit with a new partner on board.
Defiant Studios will now work alongside CI Games on Lords of the Fallen 2, though the new partners haven’t announced a release window for the title, which was initially due to launch in 2017. Defiant Studios is a fairly new developer which was set up in 2016 by former Avalanche staff who previously worked on Just Cause 3.
The official announcement added that CI Games will continue to develop smaller projects internally, with this partnership marking “the beginning of a new chapter in the publisher’s gaming portfolio.”
This sequel was announced in late 2014, not long after the launch of Lords of the Fallen, which has sold 2m copies to date and was co-developed by Deck13. Executive producer Tomasz Gop left the project and CI Games the following summer, with the studio saying they had “different visions for further development of the series.” Talking to MCV in 2016, CI Games’ CEO Marek Tymiński briefly mentioned that the project was still in the works, saying he wanted to “grow Lords of the Fallen.” News about the sequel then went very quiet, with CI Games stating in 2017 that it was moving away from large-scale triple-A games, raising doubts about whether the title would ever release. Back then, Tymiński told Eurogamer that the sequel remained in development, although its scope and structure had changed. CI Games was already looking for a development partner back then, which it has now found in Defiant Studios.
About this new partnership, Tymiński said in a statement: “We talked to a number of globally respected studios that had shown a strong interest in making the next Lord of the Fallen (LotF), and received several solid pitches. We finally decided to move forward with Defiant because we were impressed with their game concept, production expertise, and the pedigree of their developers. Defiant is made up of some the industry’s most talented creators, and we are thrilled to have them create the sequel to LotF. We look forward to bringing their next big game to the global market on consoles and PC.”
He continued: “Signing the next LotF with Defiant is a very important step for CI Games as a publisher. We look forward to continue teaming up with third-party developers to help bring their projects to global audiences, and are invested in building long term relationships. For the past several months we have been in discussions with many talented studios from around the world, and will soon have more to share about the outcomes of those discussions. This marks the beginning for CI Games in terms of the games portfolio we have been building for the coming years.”
Founder and managing director of Defiant Studios David Grijns added: “We have been talking with CI Games for several months now, and went through a detailed process of getting to know one another’s expectations and motivations in regards to Lords of the Fallen 2. We are happy that we can commit our studio to developing a great game in a well-established franchise. Our team has been excited about the chance to make the next LotF from the moment we started to work on our pitch for CI. We are particularly thrilled about the creative freedom that CI Games is willing to offer.”
