Publisher CI Games has dropped Defiant Studios as the developer of Lords of the Fallen 2, the company announced. Defiant Studios was announced to be developing the sequel back in June 2018.

“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,” CI Games stated in a Polish press release translated by Eurogamer. “The quality of the work was lower than expected by the company, as precisely described in the agreement, despite three calls to improve the quality of this stage of work.”

Defiant Studios disagrees with CI Games’ portrayal of the studio.

“We categorically disagree with the portrayal of Defiant Studios made by CI Games,” Defiant Studios founder and managing director David Grijns told Eurogamer. “The team that was working on CI Games’ project was comprised of exceedingly talented developers whose work we fully stand behind. Our team knows how to build quality games as is evident by their key roles in Just Cause 3, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 5, Devil May Cry (DmC), and many other top tier projects.”

Grijns added, “As we intend to abide by our contractual confidentiality obligations, at this time we cannot expand further on this matter.”

CI Games did not share additional information regarding future plans for Lords of the Fallen 2.