Doubts raised about Lords of the Fallen 2

Recent assurances that Lords of the Fallen 2 remains on track are now looking less certain.

Developer CI Games last week said that following its struggles with Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, the studio was moving away from large-scale triple-A games as it lacked the size and scope to compete with the market’s larger players.

However, Lords of the Fallen creator Tomasz Gop, who had previously parted ways with the studio, told Eurogamer that: "I was let go because of a reduction in team, in scope, in budget, in business approach. Almost two years I’ve been working on the sequel and I have not seen it leave the concept/vision stage.”

CI Games boss Marek Tymiski has insisted to Eurogamer, however, that the game remains in development, although its scope and structure have changed.

"We have a very small team working on Lords of the Fallen sequel,” he said. "It doesn’t mean that we are not continuing with Lords of the Fallen – we definitely have that game in our plans and we definitely want to make this a great game. We’re very serious about Lords of the Fallen the sequel. It’s nothing like going halfway: this is definitely the quality way."

Tymiski also confessed that CI Games is on the hunt for development partners for the game, but insisted that this does not mean the game is a long way off.

"We’ve been working quite a lot on Lords of the Fallen 2, we really did a lot,” he added. It’s really finding the best teams who can work on that game together, and when we have that setting, we pretty much know what we want to do."

Tymiski revealed his studio’s change of direction last week.

We’ve learned a lot as a team over the course of development for Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, much of which I believe has shaped the talented individuals within CI Games and the entire studio for the better,” he explained.

When we began development of SGW3, we decided on such a relatively large scale of the game with its open world that now we realize it was just too ambitious versus what we could have been able to deliver in any reasonable amount of time. We simply made the wrong math considering the size of our team and the originally given timeframe.

By positioning the game in a triple-A category, it took us away from what we could have done great. Instead we spent too much effort trying to catch up with other triple-A titles in terms of their production values and features. That was a big mistake.

All of that was a huge lesson for us and we’re now moving forward without any tag attached to our next project. We’re planning to make a great tactical shooter where we can focus on exciting gameplay, some key mechanics, and missions that have depth without all of the trappings of a large open-world setting. We want to make this game even more tactical than SGW3, and I believe the last three years have created a wonderful foundation that we can build upon for our next game.”