People Can Fly has always been an open and honest company, communicating with its Outriders fans via broadcasts, internally supporting one another, and fostering a new level of creativity within this ‘flat’ company. Indeed, People Can Fly stands out from its competition in Montreal with this approach, stands out from other companies with its focus on big games and new IPs, and stands out in the wider gaming industry for its particular approach to game development.

Game Rant recently spoke with People Can Fly Canada President Sam Girardin (above right), People Can Fly New York’s Project Dagger Director Roland Lesterlin (above left), and People Can Fly CEO Sebastian Wojciechowski (above center) regarding the current state of the United Studios of PCF in North America, the company’s current endeavors of honesty and communication, those leading the company in its growth, and a little bit about all the experience that defines the company. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

RELATED: People Can Fly Acquires Blair Witch VR's Incuvo

Next year, Game On will be turning 20 years old. Could you talk a little about Game On’s history and how it has grown since 2002?

Girardin: Well, yes. It's funny because both PCF and Game On will be turning 20 years next year. So, it's quite of the timing for both companies. I was aware even long before joining PCF that both companies were founded in 2002. And then, years later, we got acquired by PCF.

My background is sound engineering. I founded a company that was focused first on audio for games. Over the years, the company evolved, adding facial capture around 2006 and then mocap in 2012. Since 2017, the studios support animation, cinematics, audio, and mocap. Even though it is located in Montreal, Game On has been heavily collaborating with game developers outside of Canada. Hence our meeting with PCF, right? This is how we got acquainted.

people can fly game on

Although Game On was acquired by People Can Fly, I understand it’s still largely independent. Could you describe how this acquisition has benefited Game On over the past few months?

Girardin: Yeah, PCF is bringing new projects, fun challenges, and bigger sandboxes to Game On and its team. That was one of my key reasons to make the transaction. Our relationship is also translating into developing new tech, and accelerating our research and development efforts. On the business side, the acquisition is also giving us long-term visibility on upcoming projects. And it's actually giving some more job security to our staff, because you're part of a bigger family. It is very positive for them as well.

I also understand you’re the head of People Can Fly Montreal too. How would you describe this transition and, overall, joining People Can Fly’s leadership team?

Girardin: I love this new sandbox. It's a big one. I now have colleagues on two different continents, and I collaborate with many leaders at PCF and talented developers. And I can share all of my knowledge and ideas with all of them. Yes, I still oversee the Game On activities, while now leading our Canadian operation and expanding its scope.

I'm in the process of consolidating our operations and efforts in Canada, and it's creating new bridges between the various North American studios and our distributed teams because the pandemic has been creating new opportunities for us. For the past 20 years, I've been building teams, and I've been establishing and nurturing work relationships across the gaming community. Joining PCF is a natural extension of what I've been building over the 20 past years and bringing in a huge focus on our North American operations.

people can fly united studios logo correct

(Left: Roland Lesterlin, Right: Sam Girardin)

Montreal is a hot bed for game development, being home to several development studios and companies. What makes People Can Fly Montreal stand out from its competition?

Girardin: Well, Montreal has been standing out as a creative city for many, many years, decades because of its eagerness to bring in new technologies. Think about Softimage (now Autodesk), Cirque du Soleil, and others. The city has always been very vibrant. I think with the gaming community, it really started in 1997, with Ubisoft Montreal, and then it created a brand new ecosystem for the city. Today, some people will say, ‘Montreal is too competitive. There are too many studios. How can you attract those people?' Well, I think PCF has a great weapon to attract talent: we create great IPs. Every time we show somebody like a candidate what kind of game we're working on, everybody's super excited. I think this is how we make a difference in such a competitive market.

It’s been a little over two years since you joined People Can Fly New York as Creative Director—how would you describe these two years?

Lesterlin: I think it's been a lot of change, a lot of building over time. The pandemic caught most of us by surprise. When I first came on board, Outriders was nearing its release, and being able to help out where we could on that one and start building out towards our new IP was very exciting. One of the major reasons I was excited to join PCF was this pursuit of original properties, which is pretty rare in our industry these days.

That first year, we're getting our feet underneath us and getting a new project up. Then the pandemic hits, and we all learned real quick how to work remotely. Over the last two years, I've personally learned a lot, changed a lot of management styles to deal with remote work. We've been able to attract people from much further away than we'd be able to before, instead of just relying on developers who also want to live in New York and make the type of games we want. Now, we can rely on the developers that want to make the same type of games that we do, and that increased our talent pool enormously.

The thing that I love most about the games industry is you work with inventors, creators, people at the pinnacle of their careers, in totally different disciplines, collaborating together. Being a part of that makes it fun waking up every day. Even though I'm in New York City, it's fun that I talk to someone from Alabama, Texas, or you name it every single day. And all those perspectives and local cultures are starting to get into the game too.

What’s been the best part of working at People Can Fly New York?

Lesterlin: Definitely working on something original. I think that is incredibly rare, so that ranks right up there, and then second is the people. They are just really fun people to work with. Honestly, I had a good crew when we were joining up with Sebastian and PCF, but we were a really small team doing much smaller games. And I love making big games, I really do. It's in my DNA.

So, the opportunity to combine a really small group of talented people and be able to grow that makes it a pretty unique opportunity. New York City is a very international city, but at the same time to work for a Polish company that is growing in Canada, Chicago, and in the UK, you get to work with all these people you never would have gotten to meet otherwise. So, I think that's the most exciting part of the last couple of years.

roland-lesterlin-1

To follow up, you mentioned a minute ago how much you enjoy working on original properties over sequels and remasters, and, nowadays, there are a lot of remasters and sequels on the market. What's your sort of stance on that?

Lesterlin: Oh, in regards to some of the remasters, I was around when they were first coming out, so it's fun to see them. Games have now been at the forefront of entertainment for 30-40 years. Maybe 40 years ago, they weren't as big. The last 20 years have certainly been really big and have been a part of my life since I was a little kid. I'm probably the first generation of people who grew up with those early, early computers, you know, with text-based adventure games and stuff like that.

I think people seeing a remaster allows some of the great ideas that have been made to be played again, by a new group of gamers, and hopefully inspire people to want to make games themselves or explore the gaming industry in general. Just because they didn't look as good 25 years ago, doesn’t mean there weren’t still some pretty awesome ideas out there. So, I guess I'm for remasters, as long as we don't forget that making new things is critically important.

How has past experiences, such as Avalanche Studios and co-founding Defiant Studios, impacted your approach to game development?

Lesterlin: This industry is all learning, so I didn't know as much as I do now. I'm still learning a lot from new developers. Just Cause 3 was a very different style of game. I've always prided myself on being very design-focused, very gamer-centric, wanting that emotion in that button press, and getting that to connect. I think on Just Cause 3, we succeeded in some of those. But you run into similar sets of problems with games, similar difficulties, similar types of bugs. You get a little bit better each time at giving ideas on how to overcome a problem. Another big piece is being a little calmer in the storms of development.

After you've done it for long enough, you start being able to really see four or five years out. Having that zoomed-out perspective is something that is really learned through the years of making games. I think all of that knowledge leads to hopefully better decision-making on games and an overall better experience for all the developers working on it.

RELATED: United Studios of People Can Fly - Open Communication and Collaboration

What can you say of Project Dagger and its development?

Lesterlin: Probably nothing, but I can say that we lean on a lot of knowledge available at PCF. And we want to make high-quality games across the board. We are attracting a group of people who are just incredible to work with. I think we're going to surprise people, and I think that it's going to be an exciting game once we, one day, get to actually talk about it. Games are so big now, they take so long to make. The main thing is to work with people who are passionate and creative, and also want to make something new.

Honestly, making a new IP is daunting in today's industry. There's a lot of risk on all sides. You are predicting where you're going to land a few years out and trying to make a game that people will be excited about a bunch of years out from when you start the idea. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to show some more stuff.

people can fly project dagger

How would you describe the workplace culture at your perspective studios?

Girardin: I think now the context is a bit different, with the pandemic. We're not gonna lie, it's been a challenge for the whole planet, including us, I think that PCF and Game On did great work to switch their team to this new work from home model. From my perspective, working from home did remove the distance between our people. We still have very few people coming to the office because our first reflex is to protect them and to not push them going back to the office that fast.

Obviously, we need to also put the effort to over-communicate and making sure that people are kept well, because you don't have the same pulse. We had to adapt how we take this pulse. For example, with Project Dagger we have a weekly project meeting that Roland is driving to bring visibility and keep the collaboration across the team.

Lesterlin: That kind of touches on our own communication, and culturally, we can always be better at that. Certainly, we're not perfect at it. There are issues from time to time. But we try to be a very open, very honest group, from leadership and production throughout all the developers as well. Creativity can spring up from anywhere. So, it's not just about communicating yourself, but also listening to others and hearing cool ideas, and then making sure they can be followed up on.

Being a creative lead, you want to look at everything, but with people distributed, you don't have time to see everything. And so it means you have to pass some of that creative decision-making to individual developers and let them really own their feature and push it. So, that created an organization where people are really honest with each other with great feedback loops, while being very respectful. We all know how hard it is to work from home, families in the background, and we want to make sure that we're getting the most creativity and curiosity possible, which means listening to them and adjusting.

Girardin: To me, PCF is the least corporate publicly traded company in the industry period. The structure is kept flat and people are accessible. If you want to send a message to Roland, you send a message to Roland on Slack. You want to talk to me about something, you talk to me about something. If you have an idea and you want to chat with Seb about it, you go to Seb. We're always open, and that's just because we're passionate.

So really, I want to emphasize that it's the least corporate publicly traded company in the video game industry period. It is the flattest company that you can be in right now.

people can fly

I understand that the North American People Can Fly studios have a high level of collaboration. How would you describe the relationship between People Can Fly New York and Montreal?

Lesterlin: Well, it's honestly hard to tell the difference. Sometimes, people might have some accents, maybe I get to speak in French from time to time. But other than that, we have leads in totally different areas of the United States, Canada, Poland, and the UK. We have people who are in critical positions to the game across the entire organization. And when you're on a phone call, you're just on a phone call with people who are all talking about the same topic.

We have like different national holidays, so there's a little bit of planning around that when someone might be off one day, "oh, Canada is off today," but the US is working. Or, Poland is off one day.

For the most part, we work almost entirely in English worldwide, which is super impressive to think so many developers speak multiple languages. PCF is even offering language classes. I know people in Montreal and in New York taking Polish classes, to start learning a few words there to help with communication.

Girardin: Yeah, I totally agree. I think transparency is also a big factor, but something that is very different, though, in every location is that we are coming from different companies, different cultures, different experiences, and it's an amazing accelerator for PCF because we have the capacity to get masters at many different things and new ideas.

Our main challenge is to over-communicate and make sure that we can share this common knowledge with everyone. I don't think the studio culture, Montreal to New York, has such a difference. Yes, different cities and you know, different countries, right. But it feels similar.

Lesterlin: There are really cool jazz festivals in the summer. I'm definitely planning a business trip up to Montreal during that.

People Can Fly Chicago

People Can Fly Chicago is the latest North American People Can Fly Studio. How has it been bringing this new studio into the collaborative fold?

Girardin: Chicago, ex-Phosphor, were already working with the Dagger team prior to the acquisition. So, we already had this vibe, this internal experience of how it was going. Then, we pursued the opportunity to get this team into PCF, to add their expertise as well.

Adding this team to Dagger and other PCF projects, we've been doing this the same way we've done Montreal to New York, and so on. It's been very natural, from my perspective. Technologically speaking, it's an Unreal game studio.

Lesterlin: I think it goes with how big the games we make are. I think Sebastian has always been one to find great opportunities and to strike when that opportunity is available. I think being able to bring in the Phosphor group goes back to what Sam said.

It gave them stability, brought them into projects they were excited about, allowed them to work on even bigger things, and added a much needed amount of expertise to the Dagger team because they've had a lot of experience with Unreal for a long period of time. That helped us across all of our tool chains and ideas. I think it was Sebastian seeing a lot of opportunity and knowing the city, bringing all that together. Suddenly, the next day, I have a whole new group of awesome developers ready to get started.

RELATED: People Can Fly's Project Dagger Leads Thinks They'll 'Surprise' Fans

What can you say about the teams at your own studios that you work with?

Lesterlin: I think we have to go back to how distributed we are, our leadership is all over. I would say I am surprised at the hiring pace in Montreal. As Sam was saying, it's pretty cutthroat when it comes to hiring up there. It can be a tough area, but we ended up finding a lot of amazing developers who jumped on board. What I enjoy most is some of the most recent people who joined have now been hearing about how fun it is to work at PCF.

That internal reputation -- the game industry is big from a money standpoint but we're not that huge when it comes to people -- is important. Word travels fast if you're not a good place to work, so it feels pretty cool that I'm hearing feedback from people we're hiring that "oh, I've heard from my friend who heard from so and so that this is really great." Then they come on board and they feel that continue.

Girardin: Yeah.

Lesterlin: That's kind of the way it's been during this transformation to remote work, and from a leadership perspective, we have people all over the world. The cohort that works with me on the leadership and production side is worldwide. Like our lead producer, Joanna, she's out of Poland, and she runs our whole production side.

ps5 xbox series x

With the PS5 and Xbox Series X still being relatively new, how have your studios gone about adapting or changing to utilize this new hardware?

Lesterlin: You're always looking toward the next piece of technology, no matter what. We all know that Unreal Engine 5 is on the horizon now, and as an Unreal studio, we are looking to be at that bleeding edge of technology. That's honestly what developers want when they look for a job too, like "I want to work on the coolest IPs with the fanciest toys." That's the best.

We already had such an experienced team out of Poland, especially engineering, who have been in Unreal for 20 years. That knowledge is a base that allows us to leverage all the work that Epic is doing on next-gen consoles, and that lets us focus on the games. Focus on how we can push the technology to tell the stories we want to tell.

That's really the whole point. You get a new piece of tech, it's cool, and someone is like I can jump the graphics up to 4K, I can reduce loading times because it's an SSD, or I have haptics on the controller on the PS5. Those are all really cool, but it's now that creativity linking them back to the game. How do you make them unique to that game, so you're not just using them for the sake of the technology. You're using the paint brushes given to you to make something even more majestic and awesome.

Nowadays, technology is shifting pretty quickly. But I'd say we all know what a great game feels like regardless of platforms. Back to remasters, you can still have an old game that feels awesome, no matter what the technology is. We're going to continue to push ourselves and the technology. I think it's great that there are new platforms out there because it's time. Once everyone can buy one, I think it'll be pretty exciting.

RELATED: Outriders Dev People Can Fly Aware of Fan Requests for Loadouts

Last we spoke, the emphasis at People Can Fly was on AAA games, but a recent strategy update revealed PCF is adding AA games to its global pipeline. What led to the expansion in this strategy?

Wojciechowski: I think I need to make a clarification here. We are totally devoted to AAA production. We are obsessed with the quality of our games. So the strategy update was to let investors know that PCF wants to release at least one title every year after 2024. To do that, we are open to work on AAA games that are smaller in scope, have shorter production times, and hence lower budgets. So, as a term, AA was brought up.

There's a lot of energy at PCF globally, and we also observe that with our processes, tools, and experience, we could expand our horizon with new models, while still maintaining our trademark quality of AAA-style experiences. So yeah, lower budget and shorter development cycle allows us to have more varied products on the market.

People Can Fly also has a focus on the action and shooter genres. Will these games fit into this mold as well, or will/can they be more varied in genre?

Wojciechowski: Sure, yeah, we are proud of our shooter legacy and it will be forever part of our DNA. We have a lot to say in this genre, and I think it will show in the future. So, shooter genre is incredibly broad and competitive, and we are always trying to add different flavors to our game, to shake up the formula or disrupt the genre. We did it years ago with Bulletstorm and recently with Outriders by adding looter shooter and RPG elements.

Project Dagger is an action-adventure game, which shows our readiness for the exploration of ideas distinct from our previous games. In our strategy update, we've opened the possibility of exploring new genres and acquiring or merging with new teams to fulfill that goal.

It's definitely too early to say what kind of new directions these games will take or how far they will stray from the shooter or action genres. But we are eager to explore. One element will remain constant though – AAA quality and fidelity of games we are making. Whether it's an AAA production, or let's call it a compact AAA production, there will be no compromises on the quality. This will let us provide varied experiences to players, which is the reason we made this addition to our strategy.

bulletstorm cover art

So, does this plan mean the next People Can Fly game is aiming for 2024, or are there any plans before that?

Wojciechowski: 2024 came from our IPO prospects where we basically announced it's a launch year for Project Gemini and Project Dagger. We still have Outriders, and it's a living IP. We have just released a colossal update – New Horizon and announced a paid update – Worldslayer – to be released in 2022. Square Enix said this IP is on its way to become a major franchise in their offerings. Another thing we have announced is we are working on a AAA game that we will be self-published, another key milestone for PCF.

On top of that, we are working on a couple of other projects. And I would say this is not the end, as we are always exploring different ways to come up with new ideas for all our fans around the world. Saying all of this, I wanted to show you there is a lot going on at PCF that might make us have something before 2024.

Introducing self-publishing into the People Can Fly game development model was one of the company’s big global growth goals, and that game has now entered pre-production. Could you describe the feelings among the leadership team leading into this decision and making it a reality?

Wojciechowski: Since PCF has grown massively over the past few years and through our successful IPO that allowed us to secure funds to work on games independently, we decided it was time to start working on a game with the intention to also self-publish it.

We have always communicated this self-publishing effort as a major part of our strategy, and we are very glad we are now able to do that. We can confirm that our first self-published game is in the works. We, at the same time, believe strongly in maintaining our business of video game development that blends two models: working with global leading publishers but also getting into the self-publishing model.

The first one is safer from a financial standpoint. It allows PCF to show revenues and profits, which is obviously quite important. But, the other one, although far riskier, is way more profitable if done right. That's why PCF knew it was the right strategy and the right move, and we have committed to these plans. We've made changes in the organization to make sure we can operate when running self-publishing projects in parallel with projects made with publishers.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Wojciechowski: 2022 is just around the corner. We will still be focused on work with our current projects, whether it was Outriders, Dagger, Gemini, or the game we plan to self-publish. Those are our priorities. These are the projects that will stimulate our growth.

We are also intending to grow PCF further with acquisitions and mergers. I can't share more now, but we are always on the lookout for opportunities. That said, the most important thing is we want to remain a very creative place to work. This is something Sam mentioned, Roland mentioned, a place where we create new and exciting IPs, where developers can grow and learn and still have fun. This is the most important for us going forward.

Outriders New Horizon

outriders new horizon update

Back in August, there was some confusion out there about the profitability of Outriders. With Worldslayer and Square Enix recently describing Outriders as a potential “major franchise” (in our interview), could you clarify where Outriders, PCF, and Square Enix now stand here?

Wojciechowski: A bit of confusion would be an appropriate term for the situation. There was no conflict in regards to royalties, rather a communication gap. We had released our statement on the lack of royalties only because we have certain disclosure obligations on our capital market. However, the communication gap was bridged just after our statement – we have been receiving the royalties reports from Square Enix on the regular basis. They have confirmed the game hasn’t broken even yet and we accept this information.

We should point out that taking some time to break even is very common in the industry due to the costs involved in big productions like Outriders. We’re confident we’ll get there, but for now, Square Enix and PCF are investing in establishing a new franchise.

When discussing this topic, it’s always worth mentioning that royalties are a bonus source of income for PCF. Milestone payments related to our work on games are covering the production costs with an appropriate margin. We’ve been receiving those payments from Square Enix according to contractual obligations and milestones’ cadence.

It’s also essential to note that our relationship with Square Enix is as strong as ever. Our collaboration didn’t change in any way and is proceeding in a “business as usual” mode. We are both fully committed to developing Outriders brand further and later events – a new investment agreement with Square Enix on subscription warrants, the release of New Horizon update and the announcement of Worldslayer – prove that we are not slowing down.

So, the reception to New Horizon has been overwhelmingly positive online. Lots of fans praising the transmog system, untimed expeditions, and more. What could you say to the reception of New Horizon so far?

Wojciechowski: We are very glad to receive many positive and encouraging signals after New Horizon went up. Not only from media but also from the player community with kind words about new features and changes we implemented. We always appreciate every piece of feedback very much, because in the lead-up to New Horizon we have spent thousands of work hours to address properly everything that was brought to our attention. It was always our intention to provide a great experience with this game, so New Horizon is a big step forward in this matter and all of the feedback is much welcomed.

It is also great to see that the positive feedback is reflected by the rising number of players, however, we should let some more weeks to pass in order to assess the trends and make conclusions based on them.

people can fly games

One common request I am seeing now, one thing New Horizon didn’t touch, is the ability to lock and save loadouts. Could you say if PCF is working on this?

Wojciechowski: We are aware of the fan requests regarding loadouts. However, at the moment we are not able to disclose if any new systems or solutions will be added to Outriders in the future. Only thing we can say is that the work on the Outriders experience continues.

The Outriders Broadcast is a really nice, almost Nintendo Direct-like, way of communicating new information for fans. Will this be something PCF keeps up with future Outriders updates and the expansion like Worldslayer?

Wojciechowski: Something that came up as an idea to present the game during the time of pandemic and lockdowns turned out to be a very attractive way to communicate with our players, but at this time we are unable to confirm any marketing plans for 2022.

Is PCF planning any sort of potential roadmap for Outriders in 2022 or is it more touch and go?

Wojciechowski: The only key beat we are able to confirm for 2022, is Worldslayer full reveal, which will take place in spring 2022. At the moment, we don’t think we will be presenting any kind of definite roadmap for 2022 any time soon.

People Can Fly is currently working on Outriders, Project Dagger, Project Gemini, and a self-published project.

MORE: Outriders New Horizon Sets the Bar With Its Transmog Feature