Condor Will Be Remedy’s First Live Service Game (It’ll Be Fine, I Think)

Remedy Entertainment has shared the first solid details regarding their upcoming project spinning off from Control, which is codenamed Condor.

As reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, who themselves acquired the link from ResetEra, this information comes from Remedy’s latest financial report. So what they are disclosing is really meant for investors, but of course, since it’s supposed to be publicly disclosed, we get to read it too.

As found in page 22 of the report, here’s what Remedy has to say about Condor:

“Codename Condor is a spin-off game of Control. The game’s initial development budget amounts to EUR 25 million and Remedy has the ownership of the game’s intellectual property. Codename Condor will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Codename Condor will be built on Remedy’s proprietary Northlight technology and tool set. At the end of 2023, the game was in the production readiness stage.”

In page 10 of the report, they also elaborate on the game being live service, saying:

“Service-based fixed price games with additional payable downloadable content can become an increasingly important commercial model for Remedy in the future. These are premium games that may have a lower initial price point but a long tail of revenue through updates, game expansions and potentially microtransactions.

For these games, a key differentiator is the post-launch live operations phase meant to keep players engaged for years. This model will be used for example in codename Condor, a multiplayer spin-off game of Control.”

So, instead of being a free-to-play title leaning towards whales to spend, like Fortnite, it will be a fully priced retail game, that will also have possible microtransactions in the future. So that’s somewhere between the 1st Splatoon and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

But perhaps we can give Remedy Entertainment more slack in this account than Rocksteady Studios. While Rocksteady seemingly had to make Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League under WB Games’ edict, Rocksteady is making this game with full creative independence.

We do know that is the case, as Rocksteady is actively pitching the title to their investors in this report. Plus, they emphasize to those investors how it is important that even their live service game remains fixed price, and not a free-to-play title.

This is certainly a touchy subject, but the fundamental design decisions to make a game free-to-play make them completely different kinds of games from fully priced retail games. Many free-to-play gamers think they’re being smarter or more frugal than other gamers, by not paying. But, they aren’t aware that they’ve tied themselves up to a completely separate genre to what everyone else also plays.

And if you don’t want to play this title, no one is going to force you to either. But it seems we have to collectively acknowledge that if an independent, well regarded studio like Remedy, chooses to make a live service title on their own, then this isn’t just a trend every company is getting into because they’re greedy. The Condor audience may turn out to be completely different to that which has been playing Remedy games right until now. We hope Remedy can make new lifelong fans with this project.