Lords of the Fallen 2 was originally announced in 2014 with a scheduled release date of 2017, but after the reveal of the game things went a little quiet until 2018 when Defiant Studios, headed by the former studio head and game director of Avalanche Studios New York, announced they were working on the project.
Fast forward to today and publishers CI Games have posted a press release that states that Defiant did not deliver the product as expected, and therefore they would no longer be working on the game.
“The termination of the agreement was submitted due to inadequate execution by Defiant [of] a key work stage (milestone no. 11), a so-called vertical slice,” it reads. “The quality of the work was lower than expected by the company, as precisely described in the agreement, despite three calls to improve the quality of this stage of work.”
Defiant Studios are, well, defiant. “We categorically disagree with the portrayal of Defiant Studios made by CI Games,” founder and managing director David Grijns stated to Eurogamer. “The team that was working on CI Games’ project was comprised of exceedingly talented developers whose work we fully stand behind. Our team knows how to build quality games as is evident by their key roles in Just Cause 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 5, Devil May Cry (DmC) and many other top tier projects.”
David would not make any further comment due to “contractual confidentiality obligations”, but it’s clear the split is less than amicable. CI Games have stated that they plan to complete the game themselves along with some outsourced help.
We gave the original Lord of the Fallen 6/10 in our review. “If you’re looking for a game that has punishing fights, but is a bit easier than Souls then this is it,” said Aran. “However the story and lore just aren’t that interesting, despite a good premise and Harkyn doesn’t have much personality. ”
The game was also given away on PlayStation Plus ages ago so might have a copy hiding in your library.
Source: Eurogamer
