The rocky road of development of action RPG sequel Lords of the Fallen 2 appears to have hit another speedbump today, as CI Games and Defiant Studios appear to have come to blows resulting in the latter studio being removed from the project.

In a Polish press release by CI Games spotted and translated by Eurogamer, CI Games claims that Defiant – who were only brought onto the game just under a year ago – submitted a vertical slice for the game that was below par, resulting in the termination of the agreement. They said ‘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 fired back, with founder and managing director David Grijn telling Eurogamer that ‘We categorically disagree with the portrayal of Defiant Studios made by CI Games. The team that was working on CI Games’ project was comprised of exceedingly talented developers whose work we fully stand behind.’ However, Grijn was unable to go into further details at this time due to ‘contractual confidentiality obligations’ that Defiant intend to abide by.

For their part, CI Games has said that it intends to finish the rest of the game itself, which was said to be restarted from scratch once already not long after Defiant took over. It’s also still planning to release Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts, due out at some point this year, so it’ll be interesting to see how the studio handles both projects.