It’s no secret that Lords of the Fallen 2 has had its fair share of development troubles. The game was first announced for a 2017 release all the way back in 2015, though we learned at the time that developer Deck13 wouldn’t be returning for the sequel. Last year, we learned that Lords of the Fallen 2 had been stuck in the concept stage for two years, and that the publisher was looking for a new development partner.
The last time we heard about the title was in February, when CI Games was significantly downsized, but confirmed that they would “move forward with a new partner in the next few months”. Today, we learned who that partner was – New York City based developer Defiant Studios.
Defiant Studios doesn’t have many games under its belt yet, as it was just formed in 2016 by former developers from Avalanche Studios, though they did help Rockstar develop the HTC Vive port of LA Noire: The VR Case Files. David Grijns, Founder and Managing Director of Defiant Studios, commented on taking on the development of this large project:
“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 Lords of the Fallen 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.”
Meanwhile, CI Games’ Chief Executive Officer Marek Tymińsk revealed why CI Games chose to partner with Defiant Studios for Lords of the Fallen 2’s development:
“We talked to a number of globally respected studios that had shown a strong interest in making the next Lords of the Fallen, 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 Lords of the Fallen. We look forward to bringing their next big game to the global market on consoles and PC.”
According to CI Games, this partnership also signifies a step in a new direction for the publisher, as they will now be developing “smaller and leaner” projects internally while partnering with third party studios for other titles. The publisher also revealed that they will have more to reveal about other third-party partnerships “soon”.
While Lords of the Fallen 2 does have a new developer, no firm release date or specific platforms outside of PC have been announced. DualShockers will be sure to let you know when more is revealed about the title