No Brakes Games scraps Human Fall Flat 2, restarts as Human Fall Flat 3 after physics rebuild
Summary
Founder Tomas Sakalauskas confirmed Human Fall Flat 2 is cancelled and rebranded as Human Fall Flat 3
The original human game hit 60 million players, funding a full restart without financial pressure
Sequel was scrapped after years of work drifted "too stiff, too polished" from the franchise's physics identity
"I'm really happy we had the luxury not to release that."
01
Sequel scrapped after wrong physics branch killed the clumsiness
Sakalauskas says he followed "the wrong branch of physics," producing a sequel that lost the franchise's core appeal
"It was too stiff. Too polished."
Studio spent years on the project before rebuilding from scratch, with some design beats repurposed
No release date set - Human Fall Flat 3 ships "when it's ready"
New design mandate: immersion and physical reactivity above all else
02
60 million players bought the freedom to restart Human Fall Flat 3
Sustained commercial success gave the studio runway to abandon years of sequel work without existential risk
Signal for investors: long-tail franchise IP creates optionality single-title studios cannot access
Curve Digital's decade of commercialization kept revenue flowing throughout the failed sequel cycle
Sakalauskas explicitly warns against imitating the outcome: he does not expect the next game to sell 60 million
03
Publisher fit was chosen on chemistry, not portfolio or terms
Sakalauskas credits Curve Digital with marketing, platform outreach, and commercialization he found unappealing
"I created the seed that had potential, but if I were alone as a solo developer, most probably I would have died by now."
He chose Curve based on conversations with then-publishing director Simon Byron, not checkboxes
"A publishing deal is a little bit like a marriage."
04
Scaling failed twice before Lithuania tech team clicked
Attempt one: Curve subcontracting eased load but compartmentalized development in ways that hurt the experience
Attempt two: Tenerife studio brought experienced hires with "rigid processes" - closed after late-stage changes became impossible
Attempt three: Lithuania team built around technical alignment, treating the game as an engineering project
"You make systems, and from those systems, nice behaviors emerge."
Lesson: for emergent, physics-driven design, mindset alignment beats headcount or process maturity
Events
Companies
Games
Locations
—
SYNTHESIZED FROM:
COMPILED BY GAMES ATLAS EDITORIAL
RELATED ARTICLES
EXPLORE MORE
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!