People Can Fly, the Polish team behind the underrated Bulletstorm and fantastically entertaining Painkiller, has regained its independence from Epic Games. Actually, that makes it sound like there was some kind of military annexation. Which there definitely wasn’t.
”Ownership of the company, which had been rebranded as Epic Games Poland in 2013, has returned to the local leadership to reflect the team’s desire to create their own games, a move Epic supports,” the team explains in a press release.
While the studio will continue to work very closely with Epic Games, contributing to work on the Unreal Engine 4 and upcoming sandbox survival game Fortnite, it’s also going to start work on an all-new game. Potentially, that could mean a sequel to Bulletstorm - People Can Fly never actually sold the rights to the IP.
It sounds like the relationship between the two companies was a positive one, and the split only happened because the team at People Can Fly wanted to make their own games again. Epic was clearly happy to let them do so.
”To dive into the game development process that starts in your head, through concepts and design ideas, realized in prototypes and finally in the game, to inspire each other every minute, to create and iterate, was stronger than all the benefits of being a part of Epic group. We are lucky that (chief executive) Tim Sweeney as well as Epic’s board and its executive team members are fair and honest people and allowed us to reach for our dreams.”
