People Can Fly Becomes Epic Games Poland, Pitches In On Fortnite

[Andy Chalk]

People Can Fly Becomes Epic Games Poland, Pitches In On Fortnite

People Can Fly, the Warsaw-based studio behind Painkiller and Bulletstorm, is now known as Epic Games Poland.

I never much cared for the name People Can Fly, but on balance, given that the studio created both Painkiller and Bulletstorm, I was happy enough to let it go by whatever name it wanted without complaint. And so I won't complain about this name change, either, except to say that, for sentimental reasons if nothing else, I actually prefer People Can Fly; but times change, and names change, and so it is that the studio is now known as Epic Games Poland.

"We're a global company with talented people working toward one goal across the world," Epic said in a statement. "We think this helps better reflect that."

That "one goal" is Fortnite, the sandbox zombie survival game Epic announced in acquired [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114682-Epic-Games-Unveils-Fortnite] People Can Fly in 2007.

Source: Pixel Enemy [http://pixelenemy.com/people-can-fly-renamed-to-epic-games-poland-working-on-fortnite/]


Permalink

 

[Roofstone]

Fortnite, haven't heard anything about that game in a while. Anyone have any news on that front?

More OT: Don't really like the namechange, People can fly is a cute title for a company. Sounds hopeful and ambitious.

 

[Rawbeard]

People Can Fly, you will be missed.

 

[josemlopes]

Thank god they still havent forgotten about Fortnite, but People Can Fly really should work on their own instead of picking up on Epic's projects. I really like Epic but I dont think they match that well together (Gears of War Judgement was terrible and Bulletstorm was somewhat unfocused).

 

[james.sponge]

Thank god they still havent forgotten about Fortnite, but People Can Fly really should work on their own instead of picking up on Epic's projects. I really like Epic but I dont think they match that well together (Gears of War Judgement was terrible and Bulletstorm was somewhat unfocused).

After Painkiller PCF worked as a partner company for epic. They were developing models, textures etc for several Epic games including GoW. So this isn't surprising at all.

 

[Battenberg]

Nice sense of individual identity you have there People Can Fly, shame if anything were to happen to it.

In a toss up between the name Epic Games and People Can Fly option 2 is far more unique and interesting in my mind, still it's just a name I guess.

Does anyone know if their games will be XBone exclusives like Gears or will they still be designing for multiple platforms?

 

[Skeleon]

Ah, I vaguely remember hearing about that game and being kind of interested. Now I know why I never heard from it again, until now.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

For anyone who doesn't know, Fortnite is like a mixture of Minecraft and Team Fortress 2. And it will be the first game that Epic will release that will utilize the FULL POWER of the Unreal Engine 4.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

What a shame, I really liked Bulletstorm, it was certainly better than GoW 2 and 3 in my mind. And People Can Fly is a much better name than Epic games Poland. I guess they won't be making any of their own games anymore, but rather feeding off of whatever scraps Epic drop on the floor.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

The "real" People Can Fly have been going by another name for a while now. That name is Flying Wild Hog (also made up of alumni from CD Projekt Red and City Interactive). The team behind Painkiller went on to make the pretty damn good Hard Reset and the fucking spectacular Shadow Warrior reboot for Devolver. To me, this name change only confirms what I've known for a good while - People Can Fly are dead, long live People Can Fly.

 

[Link XL1]

so epic made them change their name from something unique to, quite literally, "a branch of Epic games" AND they dropped a sequel to an awesome and unique shooter in order to make... whats that? ANOTHER ZOMBIE GAME???111 COME ON!

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well what more is there to say... RIP PCF.
But honestly the people who made their good games are long gone, so it is perhaps better to let go and not drag the name further through mud then they already did.

Also for any Gears fans this means the franchise will now update twice as fast.

 

[Magmarock]

I'm not happy about this at all. It's just another for of monopoly. EA does it, and it's done so there less recognition for the small studio and more recognition for the bigger company that bought them out that had nothing to do with the great games that they made. Oh well the last game epic made that I was interested in was UT 2004. and People can Fly haven't made anything since bullet storm.

I'm hopping that the staff will leave and join either Flying Wiled Hog or CD Project Red.

 

[Jacek Wesolowski]

The recent name change is actually more like a result of the changes the studio has gone through. PCF has parted ways with a number of people in the past 12 months, including the lead programmer, the other lead programmer, one of their top tech programmers, the lead modeller, and the lead animator - and that's just a short list off the top of my head. The creative director and his two deputies were let go shortly before GoW: Judgement development cycle ended. The administrative director left a little bit earlier, prompting a number of people to leave as well (including a senior technical designer). I think all in all about half of the staff either left or were let go after Bulletstorm release.

You might think that's a pity, but I think it's actually going to help the studio grow creatively.

Flying Wild Hog is a fine studio. They are not PCF 2.0. Their paradigm is quite different. Back at the time when Hard Reset was in development, there were only three ex-PCF-ers on board: Pawel Dobosz (a concept artist), Michal Hrydziuszko (an animator), and me. We all had left PCF even before Bulletstorm was completed. I think both Pawel and Michal are still with Flying Wild Hog.

Virtually every major studio in Warsaw can claim that it employs people from all the other major studios. People change jobs a lot.

 

[VodkaKnight]

PCF, you will be missed. Painkiller is one of my favourite FPS games, and to be honest, most of what the worked on with Epic was just underwhelming in comparison.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

And nothing of value was lost.

Seriously, most of the actual devs who made Painkiller left and formed Flying Wild Hog (notice the theme naming?) who created Hard Reset and did the new Shadow Warrior.

As far as I'm concerned this was simply putting the zombie out of its misery.