Remedy cancels co-op multiplayer project to focus on "existing franchises"

Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind Alan Wake franchise and Control, has announced it has canceled one of its upcoming gaming projects. The studio is currently working on multiple sequels, remake projects, and spin-offs, but the cancelation is for an original game that was being co-published with Tencent with the codename "Kestrel."

"Remedy Entertainment Plc (“Remedy”) and Tencent Plc (“Tencent”) have decided to cancel the game project codename Kestrel," said a post today on Remedy's investor blog. "Codename Kestrel had a small team working on the early concept stage of a premium cooperative multiplayer game."

Kestrel was a reboot of an older project codenamed Vanguard, a multiplayer free-to-play cooperative shooter that was announced to be in development in 2021. Developed using Unreal Engine 5, the title was supposed to have a AAA budget with Tencent being a major partner. However, in 2023, both companies announced that Vanguard has been rebooted internally to go in a new direction, achieving the new codename "Kestrel".

While the cooperative play focus would remain, the liveservice title was then slated to be a paid experience instead of being free-to-play. With the cancelation, however, the developers that were working on Kestrel are being moved to other projects inside Remedy.

Regarding the move, Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala said the following:

“Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage. 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 not the only multiplayer project Remedy has in development though. It has Project Condor, a cooperative spin-off entry set in its collected universe of supernatural games. The studio is also developing a Control sequel as well as remakes for classic Max Payne titles. No release time frames have been announced yet for any of these projects.