People Can Fly, the Polish studio behind Gears of War: Judgment, has said it’s working on a multi-million dollar project with Microsoft.
In a statement on a Polish financial site, People Can Fly has revealed it has signed a deal with Microsoft to develop a new triple-A game. Codenamed ‘Project Maverick’, the game will have a budget of $30 million to $50 million.
People Can Fly developed Gears of War: Judgment in 2013 in conjunction with Epic Games, so the deal with Microsoft could be an indication that the studio is returning to work on the series.
The budget seems slightly small for a Gears of War game, seeing as Epic CEO Tim Sweeney previously revealed that Gears of War: Judgment cost $60 million to make. Then again, it would make sense if People Can Fly is once again partnering with another studio for development.
Recent job listings at Canadian studio The Coalition seem to indicate that it’s also working on a new Gears of War game, so it could be working alongside People Can Fly on a new entry in the series. The Coalition developed Gears of War 4 in 2016, Gears 5 in 2019 and Gears Tactics, the most recent Gears of War game, in 2020 (Richard Wakeling awarded Gears Tactics 74% in our review, saying “it rewards you for being bold and aggressive in a way other tactics games would never dare”).
A new Gears Netflix TV show was announced in March, and the latest news seems to indicate we might be getting another game, too, although judging by the current lengthy triple-A development times, it’s likely to be years away.
People Can Fly also developed the first-person shooter Bulletstorm in 2011, and worked with Epic on development of Fortnite in 2017. The studio released the online co-op third-person shooter Outriders in 2021, which was published by Square Enix, but it seems to have performed poorly. As noted by Tweaktown, People Can Fly still hasn’t received any royalty payments from Square Enix for the game as of March this year, indicating it still hasn’t turned a profit.
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