To celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, Remedy kindly reached out with the offer of a five question interview conducted through email. For our conversation, we stayed close to the cause of celebration; focusing on the studio's identity and evolution, though we couldn't help but also ask about certain projects.
While the topic was on the studio's past, present, future and games, specific areas such as Max Payne's development were naturally highly guarded; even just the approach to games now compared to twenty-five years ago. So, we did have to rethink that one. Maybe another time, though!
For our answers, we heard back from the wonderful Mikael Kasurinen (Creative Director), Markus Mäki (Chief Product Officer) and Vida Starčević (Senior Community Manager). A huge thank you to these three devs who took the time to answer our speak with us. You can check out what they had to say below...
The Sudden Stop: What in your experience has been Remedy's defining moment for its identity across the past thirty
years, and was this something you felt would be a big milestone at the time?
Remedy: Max Payne is still a big part of our identity. To this day we get messages from fans who tell us
that they played
Max Payne 1 back in the early 2000s and admit that they were far too young to be
playing it when they did. The game is still so widely recognized, to the point where even folks who have
never picked up a video game in their life will know of it.
You could likely divide Remedy into different eras. There's the
Max Payne era, the “innovator’s dilemma
era” (getting to
Alan Wake), the
Quantum Break era when we were working very closely with Microsoft,
and now we are in our independent growth era. Maybe a part of that era includes coming up with better
names for our previous eras. Remedy: Taylor’s version? (Sorry.)
How do you maintain quality, that "Remedy magic," when these projects are getting larger and
more complex, more of them are in development simultaneously, and the financial stakes are
also higher?
Remedy: Going into it, we knew that a multiproject model – working on several games at different
stages of development at the same time – would not be without its challenges. There were a lot of
conversations and a lot of thought put into how to maintain the quality and our signature style -
“magic”, if you like – across projects, and what we established works for us is a very robust
preproduction phase. During this phase it’s crucial to know what kind of game we want to make, why,
and how. The team needs to have an idea of the concept and scope of the game, and a game build that
convincingly shows the core experience. Crucially, what preproduction is there for is making sure that all
those processes that we have in place do not create pressure towards the team, but instead that the
team is empowered to be as creative in their fields as they can.
Another important facet of maintaining the “Remedy magic” is that we are a studio filled with
passionate people, in the sense that when we are at our best, everyone truly enjoys what they do.
People will bring their all to a task, no matter how big, and that kind of attitude is infectious.
An important foundation for a lot of our projects for a good number of years now has been our in-house
engine Northlight, which has evolved and changed with every game. Our game design teams work
closely with our engine team with the intent to always create something unique – that's what brought
you bullet time, light mechanics in
Alan Wake, and environmental destruction in
Control.
.
.
At this point, Remedy has built up quite a bit of experience with building on adventures with
sequels. When beginning to enter the planning stage, what are the key things that are initially
discussed when working on an established series?
Remedy: We want to look back and understand what worked and what didn’t work, and make sure we
get input from the audience. At the end of the day, we always push for what we think is right, but it
needs to be guided by our own learnings and the reception to the previous games. At the same time, we
want to delight and surprise our audience, have unexpected elements.
The game we got is very different from what was being discussed a decade earlier. Can you shed a
light on how the real-time passage of time influenced the form Alan Wake 2 ultimately took?
Remedy: That story is far too long to fit into one answer, and that’s why we put it in a book – Alan
Wake: Design Works. (Pre-orders are open until 17th October!)
What could the games industry learn from the studio?
Remedy: Even though we employ a lot of developers from across the globe, Remedy is at our core a
Finnish studio, and Finns like to say that they are quite humble as a people. They would never presume
to tell the rest of the industry how to behave. A Finn would probably be quite embarrassed to even
answer this question, but we’ll try.
Something we pride ourselves on – and that we work a lot to improve – is our studio culture. Culture
isn't decreed or fabricated, it is cultivated and grown. We want to build a place to last, a place that's nice
to come to work every morning. Remedy’s culture has been evolving organically since the studio’s
foundation in 1995. At the core of it is camaraderie between every Remedian, and that’s what everyone
working here will tell you stands out when it comes to our studio. We try (the effort is never done!) to
cultivate an environment in which everyone can have their voice heard and their expertise respected,
and where mistakes are opportunities for growth.
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| Photograph taken 2001 in celebration of Max Payne, a game which paved the way for Remedy's signature style. |
