Frogwares has just announced their next title: Project Palianytsia, which is described as a mixture of eldritch horror and a Victorian-era mystery. It is aimed at fans of Frogwares' The Sinking City and Sherlock Holmes series. The remaining team at Frogwares is working on the new game despite the Russia-Ukraine war striving to make normality an impossibility.
Originally, Palianytsia wasn't the next title that Frogwares was going to work on. However, with the ongoing war, Palianytsia-which is more streamlined than their latest open-world titles-is a game they feel they can deliver under their current circumstances. It's still planned to be "ambitious, packed with quality, and with great storytelling and mystery behind it", but with a scope that Frogwares can handle in their current situation.
A few days ago, Frogwares announced that due to an Epic MegaGrant they received from Epic Games, they will be "relocating employees to safer areas" and help other employees maintain their financial stability. It seems that this latest announcement is at least in part a result of the grant, as it appears that Frogwares has enough employees and capital to go back to creating new worlds for players to explore.
For more about the game, here's a statement from Frogwares' Communications Manager, Sergey Oganesyan:
"We are revealing the game now in this way to simply show people we are pushing on and also as a clear middle finger to those who thought they could just roll into our country hoping to disrupt and ruin our lives."
"While still challenging, prior to this, everything we released during the war was existing projects that needed to be finalized. We are now making something almost entirely from scratch which is a lot harder under these circumstances so we needed to think smart about what is realistic for us. The idea was greenlit for this very reason as it is something our current team and setup can deliver compared to doing pre-production on another open-world title, which is what we were doing prior to the war."
"The name Palianytsia is symbolic to Ukraine as it's considered part of our national cuisine. But it’s also the equivalent of phonetical Dark Souls for russians who often can’t pronounce it correctly when trying to pass off as Ukrainian. And so now it's often used in the field as a test to quickly identify possible affiliation of unknown individuals."
Frogwares has been putting their best foot forward during the Russia-Ukraine war. They've shared their stories on what it's like to be working in a warzone and have released Sherlock Holmes: Chapter 1 DLC despite the ongoing conflict. It's been made abundantly clear that they're going to keep making games until they are forced to stop, an admirable sentiment that should hopefully see the company continue making interesting titles for decades to come.
For more information on Frogwares and Project Palianytsia, stay tuned for this summer, where a full reveal about their latest title will (hopefully) be officially made.