Remedy Announces ‘Alan Wake 2’ Updates Plus Exciting New Projects
Remedy is hard at work on Alan Wake 2 and it seems it’s not the only thing the studio is cooking up for gamers.
Remedy Entertainment is a Finnish game studio that has been creating video games since 1995. Many gamers’ first and most memorable experience with the studio was Max Payne in 2001. The writing, gameplay, use of bullet time, graphic novel cutscenes, and James McCaffery’s voice acting blended together into an amazing noir tale of betrayal and revenge.
It was followed up with Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne in 2003 to critical success. The game sealed Remedy’s status as a studio to watch out for. Remedy eventually partnered with Microsoft to release Alan Wake in 2010 for the Xbox 360 and Quantum Break in 2016 for the Xbox One. Both were critically well-received.
Since then, Remedy has gone back to releasing games on all platforms. Control came out in 2019 and Alan Wake Remastered was released in 2021. Remedy has since been working hard with an Alan Wake sequel that was announced at the 2021 Game Awards, a remaster of Max Payne 1 & 2 with Rockstar, and a sequel to Control. They have been quiet to keep from getting people too excited too early in case something changes in development on any of them. Luckily for us, they keep their investors up to date.
Alan Wake
Remedy recently released its financial statements to let its investors know where they stand at the moment. Alan Wake was prominently mentioned in it. For those who are not familiar with it, Alan Wake is about a novelist whose wife goes missing and has to survive the plot of his latest novel mysteriously coming to life while looking for her. CEO Tero Virtala had a lot to say about the current status of the Alan Wake series,
“Alan Wake 2 is in full production. The game will soon have all content in place, and it is playable from start to finish. We will then move onto polishing the experience. Alan Wake is a unique brand that holds high value for the company today. Alan Wake Remastered has not yet generated royalties. However, we expect the sales to increase as the release of Alan Wake 2 becomes imminent and fans and new players want to experience the original story on new generation consoles.”
via PlayStation
It’s exciting to hear how close Alan Wake 2 is to going gold – many gamers have been hoping for a sequel for a decade now. It also makes sense that they hope the remaster of the first one will sell better with the sequel coming out.
A lot of people, including myself, aren’t fans of skipping straight into a sequel unless told you don’t need to read, see, or play the first in a series. Not many properties are good at recapping enough to make everything click the way it would if you experience everything. No word yet though on a release date for Alan Wake 2 from the statements, but it will definitely be this year if everything goes smoothly from here.
Control and Max Payne
Control was my game of the year for 2019 and easily one of Remedy’s best games. It’s about Jesse Faden, while looking for her brother from whom she was separated as a child, who becomes the new head of a secret government agency called the Federal Bureau of Control after picking up a mysterious gun. It is an incredible game and an amazing story that definitely ends with a “more to come” conclusion. Virtala updated everyone on the current state of development.
“Control 2 expands the story and the world from the original Control. We now have detailed concepts on the game vision and all creative areas including the gameplay, narrative and art. We are pleased with the work the team has done and as of January 2023, the game has progressed into the proof-of-concept stage.”
via Remedy
They also went on to give an update on the Control PvE spin-off announced in 2021 codenamed Condor.
“Codename Condor is a service-based game and as such a new type of game for Remedy. We are making sure the core gameplay is solid. We are building the right team and production model for the game and are patiently progressing with the development. Together with our partner 505 Games we have seen great potential in Condor. Condor remains in the proof-of-concept stage.”
We do not know a lot about the spin-off outside of it being a 4 player-cooperative title where the players fight enemies like Aliens: Fireteam Elite or Left 4 Dead. If it plays even half as well as the main series, it could be a blast to play with friends. The story of Control hits all the right buttons for me with an organization that investigates the unexplainable and Jesse is such a great character that I can’t wait for more of her adventures!
via Remedy
The statement gave a very small update on the Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne remakes which are my most anticipated project Remedy is currently working on.
“Max Payne 1&2 remake continues in the concept stage. The project has made good progress. We are looking forward to bringing this beloved character alive again to a new generation of consoles and to a new
generation of fans.”
Max Payne is one of my all-time favorite series out there and has been dormant since Rockstar released Max Payne 3 in 2012. The story revolves around an NYPD detective named Max Payne who lost his family and goes on what can only be called a “Revenge Rampage” in Max Payne and just a normal “Rampage” in Max Payne 2. The series oozes noir style and I absolutely cannot wait for Max to come back in a big way.
Vanguard
The last thing I found interesting in the statement was an update on a multiplayer game Remedy is developing with Tencent that we know only as “Vanguard.”
“Codename Vanguard is also currently in the proof-of-concept stage. In the fall 2022, we chose to keep the game in the proof-of-concept phase longer and postpone the significant expansion of the development team until 2023. The Vanguard team has made progress and continues to work on core gameplay and meta game development as well as proving the application of Remedy-style narrative and worldbuilding. The development team has been strengthened by select key hires.”
Not much is known about the game outside of it being a free-to-play PvE shooter “that combines Remedy’s narrative expertise and action gameplay into an immersive multiplayer experience.” We can only wait and see what they are cooking up.
There was no word on if any of the games will connect to each other since they announced that Control, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break are all in one universe. Remedy is a studio I trust because I have never played anything they have made that I didn’t like. All this news is incredibly exciting and I can’t wait for them all to come out!
Let us know in the comments if you are looking forward to Alan Wake 2 or anything else Remedy is working on.
“Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn’t even remember what it looked like when I had passed it.” – Max Payne
