Remedy Entertainment has shared its annual report for 2022 with its investors, which includes an outline of what state of development of all of its ongoing game development projects.
Currently, Remedy is working on Control 2 as well as a multiplayer Control spin-off (codenamed Condor) with 505 Games, Alan Wake 2 to be published by Epic Games Publishing, a free-to-play live-service multiplayer game (codename Vanguard) co-published with Tencent and the remake of Max Payne 1 & 2 with Rockstar Games.
Of all five, the furthest in development is Alan Wake 2. The survival horror title is now in full production and is still slated for release in 2023 for PC (Epic Games Store), PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Alan Wake 2 is a traditional publisher-developer deal with Epic funding the development in full, with Remedy entitled to a 50% share of net revenue once Epic recouped development and marketing costs. Remedy controls full IP ownership.
Speaking of Control, Control 2 and codename Condor is currently in the “proof-of-concept” stage, where a vertical slice- a playable demo- is created to test out if all the game design works as intended and check if there are any development bottlenecks once it scales up to full production.
Control 2 is described to have a bigger budget, at 50 million Euros. This is a co-publishing effort between Remedy and 505 Games so both parties equally split the costs of development, marketing and post-launch investments, and also equally split the net revenue. Remedy will publish the PC version whilst 505 Games handle the console versions, slated for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Codename Condor, the 4-player PvE game set in the Control universe, is also in proof-of-concept stage. It’s also a co-publishing effort between Remedy and 505 Games, albeit at half the budget of 25 million Euros. The game, also set for PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S, will see a team of four players journeying inside the Oldest House to face “overwhelming enemies and obstacles, but by relying on their gear and each other, they will have a chance at survival”. Sounds like a loot game.
On the topic of multiplayer games, codename Vanguard is also in the proof-of-concept stage. This is a co-publishing deal between Remedy and Tencent, where Tencent will publish and localise the game in Asia as well as, under license by Remedy, will develop and publish a mobile version of this free-to-play third-person PvE game. Remedy handles the development of the PC and console version, as well as publishing it worldwide outside of Asia. This is the one game that’s in Remedy’s current slate of development (maybe except Alan Wake 2, where the game engine used is not specified) not using their in-house Northlight Engine. Rather, it’s using Unreal Engine.
Lastly, the remake of Max Payne 1 and Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne, is still in the concept stage. This is a traditional publisher-developer deal between Rockstar Games- who owns the Max Payne IP- and Remedy, with a budget “in line with a typical Remedy AAA-game production”. Since it’s still early in development, no target release window is given, but it should be heading to PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S.
The full annual report is rather comprehensive, and if you’re unfamiliar with how the sausage is made, there are slides dedicated to explaining how game development works (and in particular, how they make money- it’s designed for investors after all) that anyone interested should take a gander here.
via Shinobi602