Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has announced the cancellation of a multiplayer project codenamed Kestrel. In a statement released on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, the developer said that the decision was taken in conjunction with the project’s co-financier, Tencent.
According to Remedy Entertainment, the cancellation was to allow it to focus on other games. Not much is known about Project Kestrel except that it started as a free-to-play multiplayer game (Project Vanguard) before pivoting into a premium offering—which never left the conceptual stage.
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Remedy made an overhaul of the project in November 2023 after evaluating its position. However, it appears it was not enough to save the project. Remedy has another multiplayer game under development codenamed Condor which is expected to take place in the Control universe.
“Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage,” said Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala in an announcement to investors. “Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits.”
“We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations. This is yet another means to ensure that our game projects continue advancing well. I want to thank our Kestrel development team. Though we decided to discontinue the project for wider Remedy benefits, our team has done good work and provided us with valuable learnings. I also want to thank Tencent for their partnership so far. They have been very professional and supportive.”
Following the cancelation, Remedy removed its planned investment in the project and reduced its overall recruitment.
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A few days earlier, Remedy provided an update on several of its titles that are currently under development. During the project update, Remedy Entertainment confirmed that Max Payne 1 and 2 are scheduled to go into full production in Q2 2024. During the same time, Control 2 is expected to move to a production readiness state.
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“Control 2 team has focused on finalizing the proof-of-concept stage, in which the game world, game mechanics, and visual targets are proven,” Virtala said at that time.
“Control 2 continues in the proof-of-concept stage,” the company explained. “The plans for this sequel are ambitious, and we have seen good progress both in the designs and in the game build. We will continue at this stage for the next few quarters. We focus on proving the identified key elements before moving to the next stage and scaling up the team.”
