Remedy has officially cancelled Kestrel.
In a statement on their website, Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said this:
“Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage. Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits.
We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations. This is yet another means to ensure that our game projects continue advancing well.”
Kestrel originally started in December 2021 as Codename Vanguard, a free-to-play online multiplayer title. In November 2023, Remedy redraw the drawing board and acquired funding from Chinese conglomerate TenCent to reboot the project into Kestrel.
Kestrel was then described as a premium co-operative multiplayer title, and like other games in Remedy’s portfolio, would have connections to their other games, forming one unified universe.
This announcement comes only two weeks after Remedy went through a major reorganization of their management, following the exit of COO Christopher Shmitz. That reorganization saw Shmitz’s roles being spread around different members of management, and the addition of a new member: Mikael Kasurinen.
While some fans who are not fond of the industry’s turn to live service titles are likely cheering the cancellation of Kestrel, they should remember that Remedy is still slated to publish another such project, Condor.
In fact, Condor is significantly further along in development that it is likely to release, at least within the next two years. Remedy has a more fully formed idea for this title too, as a spinoff of Control which will help build the lore in that universe, while giving Remedy experience in making multiplayer and live service for the first time.
One could even opine that Remedy made a reassessment of their projects following their reorganization, and decided to cancel Kestrel because of Condor. They may have rightly felt that the two games are too similar, and are likely to end up competing with each other.
Another possibility is Remedy reassessed their ability to support live service titles while still working on their single player games. Remember: Naughty Dog came to the conclusion that if they went through with publishing The Last of Us Online, they would not be able to make other games while supporting it. And that was the reason Naughty Dog chose to cancel the game instead, knowing the fan uproar.
In any case, Remedy’s statement also seeks to assure fans and investors that this is not a sign of trouble in the company. In fact, if anything, they’re making smart choices now to ensure all the games they do get out are as best as they can be.
