‘Live multiplayer game experiences’ the core of new Remedy ‘Vanguard’ team

Control and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment is trying something different. Today, the Finnish development studio announced a third team that appears to embody a very “indie studio” approach, but within a larger organization.

‘Remedy Vanguard’ will sit alongside the AAA core team that is currently working on the third-person action game Control, to be published next year by 505 Games, and the team currently working on the narrative of Korean-based online game Crossfire 2. These teams are in addition to the dedicated research and development unit working on its proprietary engine, Northlight.

Vanguard will focus on “live multiplayer game experiences on that’ll “challenge conventions” as a team that’ll “act with a startup mentality within the stability of a large company,” it said in a message announcing the initiative.

However, Vanguard will work on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, not Remedy’s proprietary Northlight engine.

“The aim is to make groundbreaking video games that uphold the Remedy Entertainment name,” it said. “This is a unique opportunity for you to come in, and create and establish a new kind of Remedy experience.”

This might be a sort of changing of the guard for Remedy. In the past, it has been known to work on single-player only games and been primarily a studio that has had a singular focus on one game at a time to the point it’d be a long time between reveal and release.

Examples of this include its Microsoft partnership with the 2010 cult horror masterpiece Alan Wake, announced in 2005. There’s also 2016’s Quantum Break, which was announced as a one-of-a-kind TV and game hybrid back at the reveal of the Xbox One in 2013, when the focus on the system at the time was a more broad approach to entertainment.

With Control’s reveal at E3 this year and to be published by 505 Games next year for Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4 — the first time a Remedy game will be on a PlayStation platform in sixteen years (Max Payne 2) — the studio seems to be heading towards the games-as-a-service (GaaS) model.

We’ve reached out to Remedy for more details on the Vanguard team and will update as it comes in.