Remedy Entertainment’s next major title is being made with a lower budget, but the CEO of Remedy believes it can still be great. The studio head behind hit sci-fi thriller titles Control and Alan Wake, Tero Virtala, has indicated that Control 2 is being produced with a much smaller budget than Alan Wake 2 of around $57 million to be shared between Remedy Entertainment and Annapurna Interactive.
In a time where the budget of modern game development constantly seems to be inflating to astronomical levels, this seems to be one of the rare occasions where a studio admitted to undertaking their next project with a smaller budget than their previous release. This is in-part due to the upcoming release of Remedy’s first multiplayer title and Control/Alan Wake tie-in FBC Firebreak, as well as costs associated with the release of the critically praised Alan Wake 2.
Virtala believes that the budget of $57 million will still be enough to create a great Remedy game, and I as an avid fan of their connected universe of wacky and inspired science fiction, believe that it is more-than possible. Remedy is known for their amazing story telling and fascinating world building thanks in no-small part to their brilliantly unique creative director Sam Lake.
With Virtala as CEO and Lake as creative director, Remedy could likely create remarkably imaginative and engaging games with nothing but a small team of dedicated devs working with an indie budget, so with $57 million dollars backing the development of Control 2, I think it’s a safe bet that they will knock this one out of the park per usual.
Virtala had this to say about the business side of things:
“I think with that we can create excellent games,” he said. If the team sticks to that budget and the game sells two million units, “we are at break-even per game.”
“That then builds the basis that, if we create an excellent game and it happens to sell four million or five million units, then we are really happy.”
Recent trends have awakened Virtala to the idea that it would be a wise move to get budgets more under control (pun certainly intended). If Remedy can lower costs by designing and planning their games with a more realistic set of goals, and perhaps completing them more quickly in the process, then the company should be able to release quality projects that generate revenue to better support their future endeavors.
Remedy now has a new strategy in place that Virtala believes will help the studio and the gaming industry as a whole to recover from a difficult period of financial strain. With the application of this new strategy, Virtala hopes that it will not only motivate his studio but hopefully motivate developers in general to think more about the business side of the gaming industry.
As long as Remedy and other beloved gaming studios continue to put out consistently fun, engaging, and affordable video games, I think it couldn’t hurt to have developers consider ways to creatively manage spending while still producing a quality product. However, with the recent news of industry-wide price increases and an uncertain future for game development studios due to a host of roadblocks such as President Trump’s tariffs, it will be interesting to see how Remedy and other major studios handle things going forward.
