Control 2 Gets Surprising New Update from Remedy

Control 2 has gotten a surprising new update from developer Remedy Entertainment. The video game industry is incredibly secretive, sometimes to a frustrating degree. Projects are announced extremely far in advance, but questions on said projects won’t be answered for years, leaving fans annoyed. A lot of studios don’t want to open up too much because video game development is ever-evolving and that means anything can become outdated information very quickly. There are games where the entire plots change mid-way through development, certain features are cut or scaled back, and of course, games are also just outright canceled. As a result, studios don’t want to make promises they can’t keep, so they stay quiet.

However, developer Remedy Entertainment isn’t really that way. While they still like to retain surprises and don’t run their mouths on everything, they are very transparent on some things, such as the business side of their studio. They share the budgets of their games, how they are progressing during regular investor updates, and much more. It’s pretty refreshing and also insightful for anyone who really cares about the business side of video games. It may not be a full crash course into it, but it’s an interesting peak behind the metaphorical curtain.

Control 2‘s Budget Is Less Than Alan Wake 2’s

In a new interview with Game File, Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala gave some new information on the production of Control 2. It was revealed that the budget for the highly anticipated supernatural action game is roughly $57 million, but that’s not the most interesting bit. Virtala confirmed that the budget for Alan Wake 2 was actually higher, which means Remedy has scaled back or at the very least not required as many resources for Control 2, a sequel to one of Remedy’s most beloved games. Typically, budgets go up from project to project, but Remedy isn’t dabbling in $100 million+ games.

Part of the reason for that is because a lower, more responsible budget allows Remedy the chance to break even easier when it sells 2 million copies. If Control 2 sells 4 million or more copies, it’s a very profitable win for Remedy. The team at Remedy has tried to educate its staff to understand how to utilize its budget and manpower effectively so that budgets don’t balloon, ensuring they understand how the money is invested into a project. It has seemingly been very successful for them.

As for why Alan Wake 2 was more expensive, it sounds like it may not have been planned that way as Virtala noted that the game took longer than expected to make which resulted in the game being delayed. Ironically, Control 2 and Alan Wake 2 are directly connected as they take place in the same universe. Remedy is also working on remakes of Max Payne and Max Payne 2 that will be published and funded by Rockstar Games.