Alan Wake 2 Still Struggling to Make Back Its Budget

Despite the many difficulties the games industry faces around the world, Swedish developers are feeling somewhat optimistic as the local development scene continues to experience rapid growth.

Having brought the likes of Resident Evil’s Nemesis, Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head, Stranger Things' Demogorgon and Alien’s Xenomorph to its one-versus-many game of deadly hide-and-seek, Dead by Daylight is digging back into the vaults for its next classic killer. This time, it’s not horror video games or scary movies serving as inspiration for DBD’s next chapter, but 50-year-old tabletop fantasy RPG Dungeons & Dragons.

Tencent and Remedy, the developer of Control and Alan Wake, have completely scrapped their joint gaming project codenamed Kestrel, which they have been working on since 2021. The companies were originally developing a free-to-play co-op shooter until they decided to go in a different direction in November last year. They went back to the drawing board, renamed their project from Vanguard to Kestrel and had planned to make a «premium game with a strong, cooperative multiplayer component» instead. Back then, they said their game will «lean more into Remedy's core strengths» and will use repurposed versions of the company's assets and themes. Clearly, though, their partnership wasn't meant to be.

Warbits is getting a major makeover as Warbits+. Risky Lab is rolling out this new version of the popular strategy game with a full-on remake from scratch to play nice with the latest and greatest systems out there. The original version launched back in 2016, so I guess the devs decided it was time for a complete redo to stay up to date!

Today, Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment decided jointly with Tencent to cancel the cooperative multiplayer game they were developing.

Remedy has cancelled one of its in-development multiplayer projects, codenamed Kestrel.

Despite the love it received from core gamers and critics alike, Remedy's recent effort, Alan Wake 2, has yet to make back its development and marketing budget. This surprising situation has plenty of contributing factors, which we first covered in December, but the reality is that sales are soft. No doubt striking while the irons are hot, Chinese multinational holding company Tencent, the largest video game company in the world, has increased its stake in the Finnish developer from 5% to 15%, securing additional shares and voting rights.

Take-Two appears to be preparing to close its Seattle office this summer, likely as part of the recently announced layoffs across the company.

To kick off (pun intended) the new season, Erling Haaland is coming to Clash of Clans as a Barbarian King – King Haaland.

Despite being one of the most successful games released by Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake II still hasn't recouped its expenses, according to a new financial report.

Minecraft's Realms and Realms Plus recently received an update that added new features to Realm Stories, an enhanced render distance, and access to cosmetic items. The changes are meant to increase communication across the realm for all players, as well as jazz up everyone's characters. Minecraft Realms are only available for the Bedrock edition of the title.

Developer Remedy Entertainment has released a quarterly report detailing the expected development cycles for its previously announced Max Payne 1+2 remake, Control 2, and Codename Condor. Both the Max Payne remake and the upcoming sequel for Control were first announced in 2022, and players now have a better idea of when these highly anticipated releases will enter the next stages of development.