Outriders got sour reviews, but the game looked promising from a commercial perspective: a Game Pass release surely meant a tasty deal with Microsoft, and Square Enix claimed to be happy with sales.Either something went wrong next, or Square Enix embellished the situation, but the developers from People Can Fly still haven't seen their royalties.Judging from previous news reports, in general terms the deal between Square Enix and People Can Fly looked like this:Square Enix is funding the development of Outriders.People Can Fly will receive royalties from sales, but only after Square Enix recoups its share of production and promotion costs.If the costs are not recouped, then People Can Fly will not see any additional money.In the second half of April, People Can Fly published a financial report stating that as of December 31, 2021, it had not received any royalties from Square Enix.Consequently, Outriders sales have not yet returned to the publisher the agreed share.At the same time in August 2021, People Can Fly thought that the commercial performance of Outriders is decent and royalties should soon appear.But now the studio writes differently: saying that there is no ironclad guarantee that Outriders will earn enough and will bring more profit to People Can Fly (although it could be just a standard excuse in case of legal cases).On August 12, 2020, People Can Fly and Square Enix signed another agreement - for the new content for Outriders.Worldslayer addon was announced in November 2021.Judging by the text of the financial report, Worldslayer has a separate production scheme - it seems that Square Enix also pays for the development of the addon in advance, so People Can Fly is not sitting in a tough loss.People Can Fly is now engaged in two more big projects:Project Gemini - the second game in collaboration with Square Enix.Its scale is comparable to Outriders.Project Dagger - a game in partnership with Take-Two.Budget ranges from 40 to 60 million euros.Also due out at the end of 2024.
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