Remedy has announced changes in their management, starting with the resignation of their Chief Operations Officer, Christopher Schmitz.
As they have revealed in their press release, the company has reorganized roles in the management in such a way that Schmitz’s work has been spread across several people. So they will no longer have a COO moving forward.
Remedy CEO Tero Virtala had this to say about Schmitz:
“Christopher Schmitz has had various responsibilities during the past five years, with which he has helped in building the foundations of our multi-project model, and developing game project leadership, as well as selected support functions. I want to warmly thank him and wish him all the best in his next endeavors.”
Alongside this, Remedy has promoted Mikael Kasurinen to Creative Director. Kasurinen was director on Quantum Break and Control, and is now working as director for Control 2. In this new role, Kasurinen joins Remedy’s management, and he will be co-creative lead of the company, alongside Sami Järvi. Järvi himself was creative director on Alan Wake 2.
Remedy’s management was switched around to this since April 25, 2024:
- Tero Virtala, Chief Executive Officer
- Markus Mäki, Chief Product Officer
- Sami Järvi, Creative Director
- Mikael Kasurinen, Creative Director
- Terhi Kauppi, Chief Financial Officer
- Johannes Paloheimo, Chief Commercial Officer
- Mika Vehkala, Chief Technology Officer
We don’t know why Schmitz decided to resign, but in the bigger picture, this is hopefully a good sign. Kasurinen’s promotion seems to be a reward for the companies’ recent successes, and also indicates that the company itself is becoming bigger as a whole.
Remedy’s last release was Alan Wake 2, in October 27 of 2023. Their slate of upcoming projects include Control 2, the Max Payne 1 and 2 remakes, the live service project Condor, and the Tencent project, Kestrel.
Remedy had been known for many years as a bespoke studio, specializing in carefully curated cinematic experiences. While their games were very well regarded critically, it often did not translate to commercial success, or even high metascores.
That trend did change with Control, the studio’s most critically and commercially successful title since Max Payne nearly two decades ago. Their more recent titles have seen the studio diverge from their own conventions, to come up with even more novel experiences, and now, they are taking calculated risks by making live service titles and working with Tencent.
Remedy isn’t the same company it was in the early 2000s, but I think few would argue about how that is a good thing. We look forward to their next release in the near future.
