After a successful foray into the Dark Souls mould with Lords of the Fallen, developer Deck 13 moved on to work on The Surge, leaving fans to wonder if they’d get a proper sequel to the hardcore fantasy game. Those fans eventually learned they’d be getting a follow-up to the medieval fantasy game when, in June of last year, publisher CI Games said the game would be developed by Defiant Studios instead. That is no longer the case, as the team has decided to oust the studio and move to develop the game in-house instead with the help of outsourcing.

Eurogamer reports the split between CI Games and Defiant Studios wasn’t exactly friendly. According to a translation of Polish press release, “The termination of the agreement was submitted due to inadequate execution by Defiant [of] a key work stage (milestone no. 11), a so-called vertical slice.” That vertical slice simply wasn’t up to par, and after repeated calls for CI games to improve the game’s quality, CI Games cut ties with the developer.

Defiant Studios founder David Grijns disagrees, though somewhat vaguely. In a statement to Eurogamer, Grijns says the team working on the game was “exceedingly talented,” having worked on the likes of Just Cause 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 5, DmC: Devil May Cry, and “many other top tier projects,” but, due to confidentiality agreements, couldn’t expound further on the matter.

In our review, Dan Tack said the original Lord of the Fallen managed to imbue to Dark Souls with some of its own flair, making for a game worth playing.