If you’re as passionate about Remedy as me, you might be aware the company released an update yesterday containing some financial statements. One of the main topics in the document is the continued success of Control. The game has managed to sell over two million copies by the end of 2020 and continues to sell well in 2021. As a result, 2020 was a record year for the studio. In the same update, Tero Virtala (Remedy’s CEO) states Control has “long-term business potential”. A noteworthy comment.
A fifth unannounced game!
Virtala continues his writing by stating: “The capitalized expenses were related to Vanguard, one unannounced project and the two unannounced projects, which the company signed with Epic Games on 26 March 2020”.
That means Remedy is currently working on 5 main game titles. Oh hello, new unannounced game project! Since this project wasn’t talked about before, we’re left puzzling what it might be. However, Virtala’s comments about Control‘s long-term potential is one of the first hints this unannounced game might be related to Control.
Let’s take a step back though, what do we know about the other 4 projects? These games have been confirmed to be the following:
- Vanguard, Remedy’s co-op multiplayer game powered by the Unreal engine.
- An unannounced game as part of the Epic publishing deal, AAA in scope.
- Another announced game as part of the Epic publishing deal, taking place in the same universe as its AAA counterpart, but smaller in scope.
- The CrossFireX/HD single-player campaign. Remedy has developed a single-player campaign for Smilegate’s CrossFireX and CrossFireHD. The campaign is part of the game’s Season Pass offering. The main development duties have been completed.
Job vacancy & Kasurinen’s new title
Remedy has recently put up a “Senior Development Manager” job vacancy. This person will – specifically – be tasked in a key role working on the Control “franchise”. Since the majority of the development duties on that game are done, this is another striking hint Remedy is planning to do something more with Control.
Last but certainly not least, Mikael Kasurinen (Control’s Game Director) has recently updated his LinkedIn profile. He’s currently “Director of Unannounced project” at Remedy. Control was a pet project of Sam Lake and Kasurinen, both crucial in setting up the game’s world and characters. While he might be working on the games for Epic, it would be naive not to connect him with a new Control game.
In summary; Control‘s critical and financial success, Virtala’s statements, the job posting, and Kasurinen’s involvement as Game Director of Unannounced all hint towards one thing – A new Control game is in early development! Developing a game in an already established universe is usually a tad easier than starting from scratch. But let’s quit daydreaming here, it might still take months before we hear anything about this project. However, we couldn’t be more excited!