Remedy Has a New Game in Development, Alongside Its Secretive Multiplayer Project

Control, Remedy Entertainment's big release for 2019 and the first in a series of titles planned to help grow the studio, didn't top the sales charts upon its release. Remedy's financials, however, are still in good shape, and the studio's not looking to scale things back after Control. Instead, they have four projects in the works: two DLCs for Control, the single-player campaign for Smilegate's Crossfire X, a hush hush multiplayer game, and a brand-new unannounced project.

Remedy confirms the existence of this new unannounced title in its new financial statements for the 2019 calendar year. Both this new project and Vanguard, a multiplayer initiative Remedy launched in 2018, are preparing to enter pre-production.

For 2019, Remedy's revenue increased 57 percent over the previous year. While that may seem small given the release of Control, Remedy notes that the game's relatively small marketing budget may "may have impacted early launch-period game sales," while its continued success on the industry awards circuit—it just picked up four more honors at D.I.C.E. 2020—are helping Control's super-powered action and eerie storytelling find new players. In December, Remedy's CEO Tero Virtala told GamesIndustry.biz that Control was in "a good position with steady sales."

Both Remedy's new project and the campaign for Crossfire X will be powered by Remedy's proprietary Northlight engine, the same tech behind Control and 2016's Quantum Break.

Vanguard, on the other hand, is an Unreal Engine project. Remedy began hiring for the Vanguard team in mid-2018. Described as a team "with a startup mentality within the stability of a large company," the Vanguard team has been tasked with exploring "new types of ongoing live multiplayer game experiences."

Crossfire X was first revealed at E3 2019. Published by Xbox Game Studios, Crossfire X will be the first console version of Smilegate Entertainment's wildly popular free-to-play FPS, and Remedy's story mode will be the franchise's first. A gameplay teaser of Crossfire X's multiplayer, which Smilegate is building with Unreal, was released at X019.

As for Control, Remedy plans to ship The Foundation DLC early this year and the AWE expansion (which looks like it'll have strong ties to the Alan Wake series) in mid-2020.

It's worth noting that Remedy's budget for Control was less than €30 million, a modest amount compared to most comparable titles. Whether or not Remedy keeps Vanguard and its new project at a similar scope, it can at least tout Control's critical reception as a win for the approach moving forward.