Remedy Entertainment has good news in store for their fans.
In their latest press release, CEO Tero Virtala revealed that they are now accelerating development on all their current titles. Tero said:
“The successful launch of Alan Wake 2 has supported our other game projects: Condor, Control 2 and Max Payne 1&2 remake have all increased development pace thanks to the personnel released from Alan Wake 2, and we expect these projects to reach their next development stages during the first half of 2024.”
In the same press release, Remedy reported Alan Wake II sales of 1.3 million units, as of the beginning of February 2024. This makes it the fastest selling game in the history of the studio. Remedy also points out that Control has proven to have a strong long tail when it comes to sales, and they expect the same to happen for Alan Wake II.
But that’s not all, as Tero’s statement further reinforced the idea that Remedy are building their games in one self-contained universe of their own. He said:
“We now have two established franchises: Control and Alan Wake, which are linked through the Remedy Connected Universe. Growing and expanding these franchises will be a key part of our future.”
As Tero noted above, Remedy is busy working on the remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, the sequel game Control 2, and Project Condor. Project Condor has not yet been fully unveiled to the public, but what we know is it will be a live service game set in the Control universe.
Of these prospective projects, Control 2 seems to be the most likely to be successful, as a sequel to one of Remedy’s most successful games. It’s a proven commodity that has a captive audience of loyal fans waiting to be sold to again.
Once again, we ponder the dilemma of the single player studio who wants to muddle into live service with Remedy’s Project Condor, a situation that Naughty Dog chose to get away from entirely. But it must be said that there is a lot of uncertainty around the Max Payne 1 and 2 remakes too.
Hopefully, this one will be smooth sailing. Remakes and remasters of old games have been in vogue, so expectations are high. But at the same time, a template of sorts has been established for how to properly do remakes and remasters at this point, so Remedy shouldn’t feel like they have to reinvent the wheel for it.