People Can Fly secretly put Outriders 2 on pause after spending a significant amount of time developing it.
Released in 2021, Outriders was a third-person cooperative shooter with explosive gunplay and role-playing-style character growth. Despite over 3.5 million users in the first month, the game suffered from a lackluster ending, erratic support following its release, and several issues on launch day. The first Outriders didn’t do well at the box office, but it did attract a dedicated following of players who were hoping for an even better sequel.
The Polish firm People Can Fly reportedly spent a considerable amount of time developing Outriders 2 before secretly putting off the project. It is said that the sequel, which was called Project Gemini, was one of two games in development that were shelved in June 2025 due to the firm’s mass layoffs.
It appears that Square Enix, the publisher, as well as People Can Fly, shared that optimism. According to a new claim in Thumb Wars, Project Gemini was “almost done” before it was canceled; it was a direct sequel to Outriders. Studios seldom reveal who published their games, although many in the know believe Square Enix (also responsible for the original game’s publication) was behind Gemini.
Indie developers People Can Fly seemed to be losing faith in the publisher when they claimed they weren’t interested in the game or wanted to talk about its future. If the rumor is accurate, Outriders 2 was quietly scrapped before it could address the issues of the original game.
Along with Project Gemini, People Can Fly also ended their live-service game based on a new intellectual property, Project Bifrost. Several individuals within the company, including engineers, reportedly felt that Bifrost was an uninteresting game that merely followed trends and struggled to attract players.
The closure of Outriders 2 casts further uncertainty on Bifrost’s fate, which seemed quite foreseeable in the crowded live-service sector. Since production had already begun, why did the publisher decide to stop? Square Enix probably expected more people to play the original game, but it never happened. On the other hand, they might have chosen to focus on other initiatives instead. It appears that Project Gemini is just another nearly-released game that will never see the light of day.
For fans hoping Outriders might become a long-running franchise, this news is a disheartening reminder of how fast even great sequels may vanish behind studio doors.
