Support for the game has not yet been canceled, but will be greatly limited.
Finnish studio Remedy today presented financial results for the third quarter of the current financial year, which is not yet developing quite as expected. FBC: Firebreak, a co-op event that released in June, hasn’t been doing too well financially, and Remedy has lost a significant amount of money in development that it likely won’t be able to make back due to low sales. So last week, CEO Tero Virtala resigned and was temporarily replaced by current chairman Markus Mäki, while a full replacement is still being sought. It was Mäki who first commented on the results and future prospects as CEO of Remedy.
As for FBC: Firebreak, things aren’t going too well. Even the big September update failed to significantly increase sales, but the studio is not abandoning the game yet. At least there are no plans to shut down the servers, according to Mäki, the infrastructure is cheap enough that this won’t be a problem, and at least the promised update with in-game voice chat will happen at the end of the year. There will still be some updates next year, but they will be much more limited. Everything should depend on whether it will pay off financially for the company. At the investor conference it was said that the team is gradually being reduced and the developers are moving to other projects, but there should be no threat of layoffs.
Due to the failure of FBC: Firebreak, Remedy is currently relying mainly on older games that are still selling well, both Alan Wake 2 and Control. After all, the first game mentioned was released in October for the PS Plus subscription, from which Remedy will also make money. In addition, Mäki also mentioned successful efforts to expand into other markets, namely China.
According to the interim chief, Control and Alan Wake are key brands that the studio should focus on in the future, not only in terms of games, but also other types of media. Therefore, bringing it to the silver screen or television screen is possible thanks to the collaboration established last year with Annapurna. At the same time, Mäki does not want to give up expansion into different genres and efforts to reach new audiences, but admitted at the conference that two live-service projects (FBC: Firebreak and Vanguard, which was canceled before a full-fledged performance) turned out to be too much for the studio and he considers this a mistake.
However, the CEO promises a significant improvement in the studio’s financial condition thanks to the strong portfolio of projects the company is currently working on. Still in full production are Control 2 and the remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, which will be published by Rockstar as the rights holder. We don’t have any new details, but it’s generally expected that the MP remakes could arrive as early as late next year, with Control 2 likely not coming out until 2027 at the earliest.
Additionally, the studio has been working for several months on an as-yet-untitled project that has moved from the concept stage to the next proof-of-concept stage. So its release is still a long way off, but information should be added as it develops. We can only speculate for now, but given Mäki’s comments, it’s safe to assume that this is the third Alan Wake.
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Source : Zing
