Max Payne, Alan Wake and Control studio Remedy Entertainment has a bit on at the moment. A business review following its quarterly earnings report gives a picture of where the company’s many projects sit in the development pipeline following the 2023 release of Alan Wake 2.
The business review indicates that Remedy has continued to make payments on its EUR 17 million acquisition of the Control IP from 505 Games. This, it says, has allowed it to go full steam ahead on a pair of Control-related games it currently has in production. “Thanks to the Control acquisition, we can now freely decide on the future of our two established franchises, Control and Alan Wake,” said CEO Tero Virtala in a statement.
What’s Remedy working on?
This allows Remedy to rattle off its current development pipeline, a moment of refreshing candour in an industry known for cloak-and-dagger secrecy. Codename Condor, the still unnamed Control multiplayer title, is currently furthest along and has “moved to full production, meaning it has reached the final development stage before a game is launched.” It goes on to say that Control 2 team has “focused on finalizing the proof-of-concept stage, in which the game world, game mechanics and visual targets are proven.” Remedy expects Control 2 to move into the “production readiness stage” by Q2 2024. ‘Production readiness’ can be thought of as a component in pre-production. Proof-of-concept is established — the component pieces work and are fun to use — and then it moves to the ‘figuring out how to turn it into a full game’ stage.
The Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes “continued in the production readiness stage” and are “expected to move into full production during the second quarter of 2024.”
Codename Kestrel (formerly codenamed Vanguard) is a cooperative multiplayer title that is continuing in the concept stage.
All this, and it’s working on DLC for Alan Wake 2 as well.
As you can see, Remedy has built itself a pretty full docket for the next five years or so.
The confirmation that the company is still filing payments for the Control IP contrasts quite well with the Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes. It’s a tale of two IPs, one that got away and one it’s fought to keep. The Max Payne franchise was sold to Rockstar many years ago, and despite doing nothing with it since 2012, Take-Two still owns those rights to this day. That’s a decision Remedy has seemingly come to regret, recreating the character under a different name for Alan Wake 2. Buying Control back from 505 shows Remedy has learned its lesson on owned IP the hard way.
Image: Remedy Entertainment, Rockstar Games, Kotaku Australia
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