Dead By Daylight spinoff Project T has been canceled and the dev studio behind it, Midwinter Entertainment, shut down by Behaviour Interactive. Reports of layoffs and the studio shutdown began trickling out before Behaviour confirmed the situation.
Back in May, Behaviour showcased some things in the works to also celebrate Dead By Daylight’s eighth anniversary. The PVE-based spinoff shooter got a first look video and the announcement of an Insiders Program that was supposed to let people get in line for play testing. of course, now that the spin-off has been canceled, those will not happen.
In a statement, the company confirmed that when they first conceptualized Prroject T, their goal was to get players in as fast as possible and that was why there was an Insiders program. They wanted feedback ASAP about the core game design, concept, mechanics, and more that they say would generally come later in development.
A playtest was held in July, to “ unsatisfactory overall results”, that led the company to run “a thorough internal risk assessment from a product and commercial perspective”. Ultimately, since they got playtesting data so early in development, this seems to have been the root of the decision to cancel the game.
Reports from now-former Midwinter employees began to pop up on LinkedIn and social media, with some praising the studio and their time there. Others seemed r react to the official explanation. According to Game Developer, one former employee, who worked on audio, stated (in now-deleted comments that “in the most recent playtest we got a 92/100 score in fun and playability—and it is being sold that the game was not liked by the players”.
Behaviour Interactive later announced that they have offered affected Midwinter employees placement in their Canadian Studios. If the Seattle based developers Were unable to relocate, there will be a severance package on the way.
