http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...emedys-new-age
Quantum Break was Remedy's latest, an ambitious game that spliced live action TV-style episodes between playable chapters in the game. Now, it's easy to look back and scoff at the studio's multimedia ambition, but back when Microsoft was pitching Xbox One as a TV Room centerpiece it sounded like a great idea.
"In the early concept of Alan Wake 2 that we took to Microsoft ... there was the idea of it being episodic and in between having live action episodes," Sam Lake told me. "That part they loved. They were like, 'This is a keeper but... we are looking for a new IP.' They wanted to own that. Alan Wake is ours so that was off the table, so it needed to be something else.
"If you look at Microsoft at that point," he added, "with them working on Xbox One - and it was still some way off - they strongly saw it as an entertainment device. If you remember how it came out there was a lot of talk about TV and live action."
In the midst of Microsoft's TV enthusiasm, Quantum Break was born. Then Microsoft was forced to change its mind after the TV idea went down like a lead balloon. So Microsoft closed Xbox Entertainment Studios in LA and backed out. But Remedy's course was already set. Fortunately Remedy had been outsourcing its filming elsewhere, so somehow Quantum Break "survived all of those shifts at Microsoft". But the struggle didn't end there.
Cutting loose from that, from being swept along with a platform holder's current desire, could seem like a positive, freeing thing - not to mention granting the ability to reach a whole PlayStation audience.
"We worked with Microsoft Studios for 10 years, for two big games. It was a logical, good partnership. For them, the platform is the important thing, but we are an indie game maker and at the end of the day, coming out of that, we just want our games to be experienced by as many people as possible," he said, "and going multi-platform is the logical step for us."
Remedy is currently 140 people and working on two games: CrossFire 2 and P7. The majority of the studio is working on CrossFire 2, in full production, and P7 is in pre-production.
CrossFire 2 is the sequel to the absolutely enormous free-to-play game CrossFire, made by Korean company SmileGate. Remedy isn't making the whole sequel but rather the story mode - the campaign - for it.
"We are doing our traditional Remedy treatment," said Lake. "They are looking for our storytelling capability, our character-building capability and our world-building capability. [We're] taking their thing and making a story mode, or story campaign, out of that, for their big Crossfire 2."
No dates have been announced nor are they Remedy's to announce.
Project 7 (P7) is Remedy's more traditional Next Big Thing. It has a publisher, 505 Games, and will be a third-person action game with some intriguing-sounding 'long-lasting mechanics'.
"P7 is not an Alan Wake 2 - it's worth saying out aloud," said Lake. But that does not mean Alan Wake 2, as an idea, is dead.
"I would love to do that!" said Lake. "We are not making Alan Wake 2 at the moment. We own Alan Wake, I feel there is value in Alan Wake, I would love to do more Alan Wake, but these things, they are more than just creative ideas: there is a business side to it. There are many things that need to click into place to make it possible."
