Back in 2020, Remedy Entertainment, the developers of Alan Wake II, Control, and more announced that they were working on a live service, free-to-play multiplayer game that went by the name Project Vanguard. In 2021, they entered partnership with Tencent for a regional release. In 2023, the project was rebooted, and changed from a free-to-play title to a premium multiplayer title codenamed Kestrel. Today, Remedy and Tencent have announced that they have decided to cancel the game.
In the official press release, Remedy said that “the decision to cancel codename Kestrel allows Remedy to focus more on the other games in its portfolio. Other ongoing game development projects will get experienced developers reassigned from Kestrel. In addition, the planned investment needs for Kestrel are removed and Remedy’s overall recruitment needs are reduced.”
“Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage,” Remedy CEO Tero Virtala said. “Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits. We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations. This is yet another means to ensure that our game projects continue advancing well. I want to thank our Kestrel development team. Though we decided to discontinue the project for wider Remedy benefits, our team has done good work and provided us with valuable learnings. I also want to thank Tencent for their partnership so far. They have been very professional and supportive.”
Following the release of Alan Wake II several different projects in development.last year, Remedy has The Control team is focused on finalizing the proof-of-concept stage for a sequel. They are looking to get into the stage of starting production in Q2. Remedy is also looking to get into full production with Max Payne and Max Payne 2 remakes in Q2.