People Can Fly, the studio behind Gears of War: Judgement and Outriders, which is currently co-developing Gears of War E-Day has just acquired games publisher Cooldown Games for an undisclosed amount, per GamesIndustry.Biz. This acquisition is part of People Can Fly establishing its own publishing arm, and it comes after the company's 2025 was marked by project cancellations and layoffs.
People Can Fly's 2025 started with players learning that the studio would be co-developing Gears of War E-Day, as previously mentioned. That was then followed with the news that the studio would develop a new game based on one of Sony's popular IPs. That, however, was followed up by the cancellation of two of its projects, codenamed Project Gemini and Project Bifrost.
Both projects getting shuttered also resulted in layoffs at the company, and we later learned that one of those projects would've been a sequel to Outriders, the studio's third-person open-world shooter that missed the mark with its commercial sales to such a degree that it never seemingly recouped its development costs.
These cancellations also happened after the studio was seemingly forced to cancel Project Dagger, a game it had been working on for years with Take-Two before the publisher decided to drop the project.
We know of at least three projects that People Can Fly has on the go: Gears of War E-Day, the aforementioned Sony project codenamed Project Delta, and Xeno Point with Krafton. Now, it's adding a whole publisher acquisition to its portfolio, which it says will "strengthen its publishing activity" and "increase margin participation across owned intellectual property while introducing a new, capital-efficient revenue stream."
People Can Fly chief executive officer Sebastian Wojciechowski added, "While this is happening somewhat earlier than we originally anticipated, it is based on two key pillars: the trust in the Cooldown Games team built over the years, and an approach in which the publishing segment is intended to be revenue-generating from the outset, rather than cost-intensive."
"Bringing the Cooldown Games team into the organization allows us to build on the publishing foundation we've been developing for years while strengthening our ability to take great games to market globally. This structure strengthens our control over commercial outcomes and positions us to capture greater value across the lifecycle of our titles, addressing challenges we have faced in the past."
That's all fine and well if it works, but that's seemingly a big 'if' in today's video game industry. If Gears of War E-Day is a commercial success, then that likely buys the studio more time to figure out its publishing revenue. Hopefully, this bet will pay itself off in the next couple of years, and we won't look back on this as a turning point for the company's collapse.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
