String Theory

After cutting ties with Microsoft, Remedy is back at the reins. Its transformative new game shows a studio in the process of redefining its future

- Jen Simpkins

Remedy is no stranger to a power struggle. Not to imply that its ten-year relationship with Microsoft was entirely imbalanced: the studio is keen to stress that the 2016 breakup was amicable and that both parties remain friends. The Xbox owner did take the kid, though, in the form of the publishing rights for Quantum Break. And while the partnership produced great things while it lasted, there were always concessions to be made.

Alan Wake sold well, for instance, but not well enough to convince its publisher to greenlight the full sequel that Remedy had been working on. Quantum Break, meanwhile, would almost certainly have been more successful were it not exclusive to the console that lost the generation war, and spliced with a mediocre television show as part of the publisher’s vision of itself as a multimedia mogul.

It was time to reassess. Tero Virtala found himself at the heart of the process, first joining the studio as a consultant in the spring of 2016, just before the launch of Quantum Break and with the prospect of independence on the horizon – a fresh start. “We evaluated what was good, what should be developed, and what should be the future direction of the studio,” he says, referring to a select group of key players at the studio. “We had a huge talent pool already back then: 130 people capable of creating really unique, standout games. But clearly something was not in order – how was it possible, with this amount of talent, that creating a new game always took four, five, six years?”