A new report alleges thatOutriders 2was in the works at developer People Can Fly, but the Polish studio ultimately had to shelve the project. People Can Fly recently underwent major layoffs and had to cancel a couple of in-development projects, and it appears theOutriderssequel may have been among the casualties.
Launched in 2021,Outriderswas a third-person online-only co-op looter shooter that blended fast-paced gunplay with RPG-esque progression.Outriderspulled in solid early numbers - 3.5 million players in its first month - but was criticized for a slew of major technical issues at launch, finite endgame loop, somewhat spotty live-service support, and more such complaints. Many even consideredOutridersto be one of themost disappointing games of 2021due to the potential it had. Still,Outridersaccrued a moderately-sized but loyal fanbase that believed a sequel would rectify its teething problems and deliver a much more compelling experience.
It seems People Can Fly and publisher Square Enix might’ve thought so as well, as a recentreport from Thumb Warsclaims that anOutriderssequel was in development under the codenameProject Gemini, and was even “nearly finished.” Unfortunately,Project Geminiwas one of the two gamesPeople Can Fly canceled as part of the studio’s June 2025 layoffs, laying to rest the prospect ofOutridersflourishing into a franchise. Interestingly, People Can Fly said at the time that the reason behindProject Gemini’s cancelation was a general lack of communication and interest in the game’s future from its publisher, which was not named at the time but was widely assumed to be Square Enix.
People Can Fly Reportedly Canceled Outriders 2 and a New Live-Service Game in June 2025
SinceSquare Enix publishedOutriders, Thumb Wars' report lends further credence to the notion thatProject Geminimay indeed have beenOutriders 2. In addition to the sequel, the report shed some light onProject Bifrost, the other game People Can Fly canceled last month.Project Bifrostwas ostensibly a live-service titlebased on a new IP, but sources allege that the game was met with little enthusiasm even internally at People Can Fly, and described it as a “generic, trend-chasing product” that lacked “originality and creativity.”
Based on the information at hand,Project Bifrost’s cancelation doesn’t feel all that surprising, especially given the glut of live-service games these days. However, the circumstances surrounding the purported cancelation of anOutriderssequelare interesting, because if the project was apparently quite far along in development, then what would have suddenly given Square Enix second thoughts about the game? Perhaps the Japanese company expectedOutriders' popularity to increase over the years and bubble up right in time for the sequel’s reveal or launch, but didn’t see any such trend. This is all speculative, though, and the real answer likely won’t surface for a while, if ever.
