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Community Spotlight: Moss Baby

We're putting Moss Baby in the spotlight, with their brilliantly stylish and hilarious artwork, guaranteed to improve your day.

Night Springs & Summer Game Fest Coverage

From Night Springs to Alan Wake 2's physical edtions, we follow Remedy's journey at Summer Game Fest and Play Days.

A Conversation with Tiia Öhman

We recently spoke Tiia Öhman about working as a photographer on the Alan Wake 2 set. Her stunning work can be seen in-game, in marketing, and on merchandise.

An Open Letter from Sam Lake / Alan Wake Remastered

Alan Wake Remastered is coming! Read Sam Lake's open letter announcing the new game, his passion for Wake's debut adventure, and release details.

Our Conversation with Matthew Porretta, the Voice of Alan Wake

To celebrate the game's 10th anniversary, we sat down with Matthew Porretta, the incredible voice actor behind Alan Wake, to talk about his experiences and memories.


1st October 2024
Celebrating Control's Fifth Anniversary
[Community & Official Wrap-Up]

21:38  Rachel  

At the end of August, the developers, publishers, and community celebrated Control's fifth anniversary. With a global pandemic wedged in between then and now, the launch feels both very recent and a lifetime ago. With a strong following and vibrant activity, the passion for the series is still clear all these years later. To celebrate the milestone, we saw new fan art, virtual photographs, tributes, events, giveaways, as well as contributions on the official side. Remedy and 505 Games shared a message from lead actor Courtney Hope, a swag bag competition, and a breakdown of some of the player statistics. 

Below is a wrap up of the activities we saw celebrating the anniversary... 

Message from Director Faden

For the milestone, Courtney Hope sent in a quick video for the official channels celebrating five years of the game and thanking the community for their continued support of Jesse's debut adventure. 

Transcript: “Hello Control Family. Courtney Hope, Jesse Faden, the Director, here. Happy fifth anniversary! I cannot believe it has been five years. Being a part of this community has been such a blessing. I love that each and every one of you continue to play, and connect, and just engaged in this weird world. So, thank you guys so, so much for being a part of it with all of us, and here's to another five years.”


The Federal Bureau of Control In Numbers

In her blog post on the game's official website, Antonella Pounder (Global Director of Digital Content and Engagement at 505 Games) shared statistics from the past five years in the game, including...

  • Over 19M players entered the Oldest House
  • 6M hopeful Directors hoisted by their own petard
  • 3.6M killed by their elbuod live / evil double
  • Over 37 billion office supplies telekinetically launched into the air
  • 1.3 billion Hiss Compelled to re-education
  • 5% deaths due to poison damage
  • 38 million photo mode uses logged



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Remedy's Control "Swag Bag" Competition [Ended]

A week ahead of the anniversary, Remedy arranged a special competition in which three lucky winners would win a Control "swag bag".

All fans had to do to enter is respond to their post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and describe what Control meant to them. While character limits prevented a deeper look into the prize, the terms and conditions gave a teaser for what winners would be receiving; a Control-branded tote bag, Control mouse mat, two Control posters, and a Federal Bureau of Control enamel pin. The competition was online for a week, ending on Thursday, August 29th 2024.





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Win A Signed Ultraviolet Vinyl [Ended]

For Control's fifth anniversary, we gave away a special Ultraviolet vinyl signed by Poets of the Fall, also known as the Old Gods of Asgard. For those of you who have explored the shifting rooms of the FBC, you may have noticed this vinyl cover in the Research Sector, with My Dark Disquiet used as a subject of experimentation.

This giveaway had been a long time in the making. Back in March 2023, I purchased a signed Ultraviolet vinyl from the Poets of the Fall web store, run by Backstage Rockshop. When it arrived, I squirrelled it away for this special occasion, where it had been waiting for its new home.

The vinyl was part of a limited edition run of signed album releases via their web store. Simply described as a “180g violet vinyl” on the website, the cover is beautifully designed with the morpho logo which featured has heavily in the band's promotions, particularly in the early days following the release of the Lift music video. The album is packed with incredible and haunting tracks, including my personal favourite, False Kings.

For the giveaway, we wanted to keep things straightforward and approachable, so we asked community members to let us know their favourite character is in Control and why. The competition was online for three weeks, ending on Deerfest on September 15th 2024. Winner will be announced this week!



 

CaptureControl's #5YearsInControl

For the anniversary, CaptureControl put a shoutout for virtual photographers to share their favourite snaps along with why they loved the game, and using the #5YearsInControl hashtag. A week after the event wrapped up, they followed up with a beautiful video featuring fan submissions. If you haven't already, make sure to check it out below and give them a follow!

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Community Celebrations 

The community didn't hold back, filling our social media feeds with gorgeous artwork, screenshots, cosplays, and a lot more. Check out some of the celebrations below!

Super happy to have created this new art to celebrate #5YearsinControl 🥳💥✨️

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30th September 2024
Remedy Teases Alan Wake 2 PlayStation 5 Pro Upgrade

09:30  Rachel  

If you're following gaming news lately, your social media feeds have likely been flooded with news about the PlayStation 5 Pro. With a price tag of £700, the upgraded console will carry a more powerful GPU (an increase of 45%), 2 TB SSD, AI-powered upscaling technology called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, and enhanced ray-tracing for realistic shadows, reflections, and illumination. Pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 Pro has gone live, with an estimated shipping date of November 7th. 

But a console needs their games, and on release, there are a number of titles will be receiving free software updates to take advantage of the new tech. Included in those list of enhanced games are Marvel's Spider-Man 2, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Horizon Forbidden West, and Alan Wake 2, just to name a few. 

Talking to the PlayStation Blog on the upgrade, Remedy's Communications Director, Thomas Puha teased, “Our graphics engineers at Remedy have greatly enjoyed improving Alan Wake 2 for PS5 Pro together with the team at Sony Interactive. With a game like Alan Wake 2, where the mood and environmental story-telling are essential, bringing ray tracing to the game as a brand-new feature adds another layer of immersion. We have also used the additional power of PS5 Pro to improve the visuals and effects in the 60fps Performance mode, where we have upped the output resolution to 4K, making the experience look even better than before.”

We'll likely have more news, comparisons, and hand-on reports for Alan Wake 2 from the media as we approach November. Keep checking back as we'll be reporting as we approach the launch date.

Source: PlayStation Blog

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29th September 2024
Remedy To Explore €15m Convertible Loan Agreement with Tencent for Self-Publishing

15:37  Rachel  

This week, Remedy has revealed the company has been in talks with Tencent for a convertible loan worth €15 million. In a press release published on Thursday, the developers revealed that the money would be going towards internal developments as it explores self-publishing options. 

A convertible loan is one that is delivered with shares, for this deal the conversion price is set at €27.20, meaning that Tencent would receive 811,100 new shares if the deal were to go ahead. The number would represent approximately 5.98% of the company. There is also an 8% PIK non-cash interest per annum paid out on December 31st, and an early repayment option from the third anniversary.

Speaking on the deal, Remedy's CEO, Tero Virtala stated, “Part of Remedy's long-term strategy has been to strengthen our position in the value chain, to have more control over how our games are commercialized, and to grow our share of the value these games can create. As we move towards self-publishing, this financing will support us in developing and fully realizing the potential of the games we have in development and successfully carrying out the commercial activities of our next self-published games. Tencent’s investment demonstrates strong confidence in Remedy's long-term vision and strategy."

If you've been keeping tabs on the quarterly reports that Remedy has been publishing, Tencent may be a familiar name to you. In Q2 2021, they received 3.8% stake in the company, which increased in Q2 2024 to 14%. For several years they were also in talks with Remedy, as they worked on Vanguard (also known by its later name of Kestrel). While the project was discontinued earlier this year, the company has clearly maintained a close working relationship.

The loan isn't going ahead just yet as it still needs approval by Remedy's Extraordinary General Meeting taking place on October 24th 2024, alongside the Board of Directors. 

Self-publishing has been something that has been brought up in recent years, though it was following the recent deal with Annapurna that the first public steps were taken place. In the press release, Virtala stated, "This agreement [with Annapurna] will ensure we can develop Control 2 into the best game possible and allows us to move into self-publishing for selected titles and expand our franchises to other mediums."

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25th September 2024
State of Play Reveals First Glimpse of Alan Wake 2's Expansion, The Lake House

00:00  Rachel  

"This isn't the bureau's first time in Bright Falls. The FBC research department set up a facility, The Lake House. If I had any clue what was waiting for us in there... I would have just kept on driving." 

Tonight, PlayStation's State of Play provided us with the first glimpse into The Lake House, the second of two story expansions, confirmed for this October. Alongside a one-minute teaser, we also got some interesting details setting up the situation...


In the upcoming expansion, we have a new protagonist; FBC Agent Kiran Estevez (Janina Gavankar). The story runs parallel to the sequel, and follows her journey as she gains access to the Bright Falls research station, following a recorded "catastrophic event". Through a series of reckless experiments, the line between reality and the Dark Place is blurred.

For the expansion, Remedy is taking a much darker tone, teased in their marketing as "a harrowing survival horror experience". Considering the final shot of the trailer slowly, yeah I think that's pretty accurate. 

Official Synopsis: Dive into a harrowing survival horror experience with the latest expansion for Alan Wake 2, set in an eerie new location on the shores of Cauldron Lake. Within the Federal Bureau of Control's research station, the Lake House, a catastrophic event has occurred, where reckless experiments have caused reality to collide with the Dark Place.  This expansion unfolds parallel to the main game, putting you in the shoes of FBC agent Kiran Estevez, portrayed by Janina Gavankar.


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-- CONSOLE & PC GAMES --

The Control Series

The Crossfire Series

The Quantum Break Series

The Alan Wake Series

The Max Payne Series

Additional

-- MOBILE GAMES --

-- LIVE ACTION SERIES --

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