According to CreativeForge's company reports in the Business section of the Polish Press Agency website, the developer is currently setting the foundations to develop Hard West 2. As per Google Translate, the letter of intent in Polish says the following:
Short name of the issuer CREATIVEFORGE GAMES S.A. Topic Signing a letter of intent regarding the performance of Hard West 2 on PC Legal basis Article 17 paragraph 1 MAR - confidential information. Contents of the report: The Management Board of CreativeForge Games S.A. with headquarters in Warsaw _"Company"_ informs about signing on 21.02.2019 a letter of intent to create a game with the working title Hard West 2 _"Game"_ with an external development team.From preliminary findings, the Company guaranteed its revenues at the level of 50% of revenue from the Game, in exchange for transferring the license to play Hard West, while not participating in the costs of producing the Game.
The company also plans to be the publisher of the above-mentioned Game.
The only platform confirmed for now is PC, as expected. The translation gets somewhat patchy toward the end of the letter, and it's not clear whether the IP will be fully transferred in exchange for 50% of the revenue, or if it's only the specific license for the sequel. The fact that CreativeForge won't participate in the costs of production suggests that they could be transferring the IP, not just the sequel license. However, they will also remain the publisher, which further muddles the arrangement. A Polish gaming outlet also reported the letter of intent, though it didn't add any new information. Following our report of the departure of 29 employees who constituted the core team of Phantom Doctrine, we contacted the new CEO Piotr Karbowski for comment, and if possible we will ask for confirmation on the announcement.
Hard West was a moderately successful title, with a 71-73 score on Metacritic and OpenCritic, and it's owned by over 200K accounts on Steam based on last year's SteamSpy data leak report, since which it has almost assuredly sold more. There is still a niche for a turn-based tactical RPG set in a gritty western world, and depending on the development team it might still do well. Not to mention that the Nintendo Switch port of Hard West is out tomorrow.
It remains to be seen what the future of CreativeForge Games looks like after the departure of such a significant portion of their creative team. In another report from the Polish website, CreativeForge also has plans for a new IP referred to as "Aircraft Carrier Survival," announcing that its pre-production was completed by the end of February. There are other details of CreativeForge's plans, but the translation gets more tentative, and it's best to wait for a more official announcement in English at this point.
What do you think of CreativeForge's future plans? Would you be interested in a sequel to Hard West? Let us know in the comments below.
