The Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment was founded 28 years ago in 1995 and has since released several films: Death Rally, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Quantum Break, and Control. Quantum Break, and Control. This is a pace of one film every four years, not bad for a small independent studio. Remedy, however, has plans to significantly increase that pace starting this year.

Throughout most of its history, Remedy has been a one-game-at-a-time studio, but in recent years it has greatly expanded its capabilities, known as Alan Wake 2, the Control spin-off Codename Condor, and Codename Heron. larger budget Control game," and a service-based co-op multiplayer game known by the codename "Vanguard" in partnership with Tencent. The studio currently has five "AAA games" in development, which is a significant change from the pre-Control era.

"The transition to this multi-project model is well underway, but we are also feeling the growing pains associated with implementing this model, as evidenced in part by the additional time required for the "Vanguard" project in summer 2022," Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said in an investor report released today (opens in new tab).

"Then, over the course of 2022, we have learned and made changes: we have strengthened the game team, adjusted leadership roles, changed some outsourcing partnerships, improved the way we plan and guide project work, and improved the way the company's management team games developed ways to oversee, supervise, and support projects.

After managing a profit margin of 32% through 2020 and 2021 (open in new tab), Remedy plans to continue expanding: according to Virtala, the studio will hire almost twice as many new employees in 2022 as it did in 2021 and "look to the future, hiring experienced, passionate, creative and We see an opportunity to continue to invest in our people by hiring people who are up to the challenge and driving our game projects forward." The company said. The extra manpower is not only to help Remedy do more, but also to do things faster. [Our investment in our team, the Northlight game engine and toolset, support capabilities, and external development are key elements that will enable our next leap forward in the coming years. We plan to release one new game per year from 2023 onward, adding both free and paid content."

This is a serious speed-up by any measure, especially considering how sudden it is: "American Nightmare" in 2012, "Quantum Break" in 2016, "Control" in 2019, and Remedy's next Alan Wake 2 will be released this year. (The single-player campaigns for "Alan Wake Remastered" and "Crossfire X" also took place around this time, but I don't consider them "new" games.) It's a hell of a change from this easygoing pace to releasing a new game every year.

Alan Wake 2 is apparently still on schedule: according to Virtala, it is currently in full production and will soon have all the content and be "playable from start to finish." Interestingly, he also said that Alan Wake Remastered, released in October 2021, has not yet generated royalties, but as the launch of Alan Wake 2 approaches, "new players will want to experience the original story on a new generation of consoles He said he expects these sales to increase because "it will.

Remedy is not the only one looking to pick up the pace of releases: in October 2022, CD Projekt announced that it plans to release a completely new Witcher trilogy (opens in new tab) within six years. This is certainly optimistic in the face of a major trend of postponing the release of Cyberpunk 2077 (open in new tab) and continuing to postpone games (open in new tab) during pandemics (global pandemic)."