In our latest Community Spotlight, we look at Yasmin's incredible in-depth work exploring one of Alan Wake 2's most mysterious characters, Freya Anderson. .
Before we settle into 2025, let's take a quick look back into the past twelve months, revisiting the milestones and events that took place at the studio and in the community.
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.
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.
Calling all Xbox gamers! Throughout this weekend, Xbox is running their Free Play Days campaign, with a familiar title in the spotlight! FBC: Firebreak is one of four titles participating in this event, allowing new potential recruits to check out the fast-paced action regardless of their subscription tier.
Remedy's chaotic cooperative is part of the Free Play Days event alongside Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Black Desert: Standard Edition for Game Pass members, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 for all Xbox owners.
For Firebreakers looking to continue their experience without a Game Pass subscription, the Deluxe Edition of the game is currently 60% off on the consoles.
That's not all! Regardless of which platform you are playing on, until March 8th, Remedy is running a Double XP Weekend.
FBC: Firebreak is a three-player cooperative first-person shooter set inside The Oldest House. Still in lockdown after seven years, things have gotten desperate. You and your team are part of the Firebreakers, an adaptable response unit tasked with facing the most dangerous tasks as the siege with the Hiss wages on.
FBC: Firebreak is out now for PC (via Steam and Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
As we head into the weekend, Remedy has released their first developer diary for CONTROL Resonant!
With Resonant's vision taking the series beyond the walls of the FBC, the team reflects on the reasons for the change in tone and how the contrasts in the two stories complement each other. They reveal why Dylan makes a very different kind of protagonist and the team's early exploration into what makes "a Control game".
Throughout the nine-minute video, we hear from a number of talented developers, including Mikael Kasurinen (Creative Director), Juha Vainio ( Executive Producer), Annika Lehtinen (Lead Gameplay Animator), Anne-Marie Grönroos (Lead Level Designer), Elmeri Raitanen (Art Director), Sergey Mohov (Lead Gameplay Designer), and Vida Starčević (Senior Community Manager). Each voice brings a unique perspective as they share their takeaways from the project.
Check out the first development diary for CONTROL Resonant below or on the studio's YouTube channel, HERE!
CONTROL Resonant - Beyond the Oldest House | Development Diary Transcript
Vida Starčević: So many people go *gasps* at that bit.
Mikael Kasurinen: And there's something really exciting about that.
Elmeri Raitanen: I feel like we're standing on the shoulders of an aesthetic giant.
Annika Lehtinen: "Absolute f***ing cinema."
Title card showing "Control Resonant. Beyond The Oldest House."
Mikael Kasurinen: My name is Mikael Kasurinen, and I'm the Creative Director of CONTROL Resonant.
Juha Vainio: I'm Juha Vainio, I'm the Executive Producer of CONTROL Resonant.
Annika Lehtinen: My name is Annika Lehtinen, and I'm the Lead Gameplay Animator on CONTROL Resonant.
Anne-Marie Grönroos: I'm Anne-Marie Grönroos, and I'm the Lead Level Designer on CONTROL Resonant.
Elmeri Raitanen: I'm Elmeri Raitanen, I'm the Art Director of CONTROL Resonant.
Sergey Mohov: I'm Sergey Mohov. I'm the Lead Gameplay Designer of CONTROL Resonant.
Vida Starčević: I'm Vida Starčević, and I'm the Senior Community Manager on CONTROL Resonant.
Anne-Marie Grönroos: So, the obvious big thing is that now we are outside of The Oldest House. In the first game, you really only met people from the FBC.
Mikael Kasurinen: It's a world that's been warped by this paranatural phenomena. So, it's kind of a messed-up environment that is sometimes hard to process and understand. So, literally, sometimes it's about figuring out how do you navigate these types of environments? But it's also about Dylan, right? He is new to this world. He doesn't quite know himself either, so sometimes he's not quite sure, like, how to deal with certain things that he faces.
Sergey Mohov: We got to apply a lot of the lessons that we learned from the first game to the sequel. First, we had to figure out what it meant to make "a Control game". What made Control special? And what we could improve about it. Yeah, it's been a long ride, but I think the results will speak for themselves.
Elmeri Raitanen: I feel like we're standing on the shoulders of an aesthetic giant, so to speak. And for many years now, the developers and the players and Dylan Faden alike, we have been staring at these oppressive, brutalist walls quite closely. So, I think it's time to get a breath of fresh air.
Mikael Kasurinen: The first game is inside the Oldest House, in isolation, and it's about Jesse, who's comes from the outside world into that space. Right? She's new to that reality. She hasn't seen any of this stuff before. So, she learns a lot about these paranatural forces and the nature of the FBC and all of that... but she's kind of trapped inside. Dylan, he's always been inside The Oldest House, or for twenty years, his whole adult life. That's normal to him. So, it feels poetic and right that now his journey is from within that place we saw in the first game to the other direction. It's a reverse journey compared to Jesse going from that isolation and captivity, that strange place that is normal to him, to the outside world. And that outside world is weird and strange to him, yet familiar to us. And there's something really exciting about that.
Annika Lehtinen: Things that I'm most excited about for players to actually experience is all the cool new ways, you can finish off all the enemies, because we've put a lot of emphasis on that.
Juha Vainio: Another thing I'm super keen about is the balance between the Aberrant (the melee weapon) and the paranormal powers that Dylan has. So, you can get really close with the Aberrant, and then you can take a step back and use the paranatural powers from a distance.
Mikael Kasurinen: One part of the experience that I'm very excited about is the sense of motion that you have through the world. We put a lot of energy into it, and many of you have already seen Shift, the way that you can tap into these Gravity Anomalies within the world. And the whole world can kind of, rotate, basically. And we're really tapping into that, like, finding these mind-bending journeys through the world where it's being paranaturally shaped around as you navigate through it.
Vida Starčević: I am excited to see players experience Dylan's story because there have been so many players that have found themselves in Jesse's story and that have loved Jesse's story. And Dylan was kind of an enigma in the first game. So now we are going deeper and we're going to figure out who this guy is, where he's been, how he's gotten to the point where he is now.
Mikael Kasurinen: With Control (1), we wanted to establish a new world, basically. It's a new IP, a new experience, and so on. And we have this perspective of a character who is also new to this world. Jesse didn't know what the Oldest House was about; she didn't know about the powerful forces and so on, and we get to learn about that together with Jesse. And I wanted to replicate that feeling with the sequel as well. We call it "a sequel", and it is a sequel, but it's also an independent product that stands on its own feet. And to me, these games go together like two siblings, each belong to the same family, but they have their own, identity and desires and own fate, and they're connected.
Vida Starčević: Control is a game that, at the point of shooting this, it's like seven years old. And I feel like the way that the culture, the internet moves these days, you don't really get that kind of staying power with a lot of games. Like, there's only a select number of games that you can think of that people are still talking about the way that they talked about it, with the same sort of zeal and love that they talked about it when it launched, as they are seven years after it launched. So, that's been incredible to witness, and it's been so humbling to witness. And I don't know what to do with myself when I see people, you know, seven years in talking about how much they love Control, how much the game meant to them.
Juha Vainio: What I think resonates with Control audiences and makes it one of the biggest IPs we have is the fact that we are doing things gameplay-first in the Control franchise. So, story has always been in the centre of Remedy games, and story is super important for us as well, but when it comes to the second-to-second combat and traversal, we've really gone to town with gameplay. And we already did that with Control (1), but now with Resonant, we are taking it to the next level. So, we have the biggest gameplay team in Remedy history working on it.
Mikael Kasurinen: Returning players will definitely get to see a lot of familiar faces, familiar phenomena. The Hiss and Mold are there, but of course, we're introducing a lot of new things as well. There's a fun layering of familiar things, but definitely facing new challenges.
Vida Starčević: I think the team really poured a lot of themselves into this game and really listened to the community and to their love and to their criticism for Control, and just improved on it and in CONTROL Resonant.
Mikael Kasurinen: We, as a studio, we have existed for thirty years, so there's a really loyal fanbase, that mean a lot to us. As we created CONTROL Resonant, it had a special meaning to us. What we wanted to do was make sure that the fans get to experience the things that they've experienced with all the Remedy games in the past, yet at the same time, we wanted to do something new and unexpected, something that we're also invested in and excited about to expand the universe and do new things.
Vida Starčević: When the trailer came out, it did feel bigger, and I think that's what stood out to me the most, like, "oh my God, all these people who I wouldn't think were a Remedy fan saw this and loved it!" And I think my favourite is just seeing that bit in the trailer when Dylan walks out of the subway, and he slams the Aberrant open, and so many people go *gasps* at that bit. And that's just, *chefs kiss* so nice to see that!
Today, an embargo on a hands-off gameplay preview of CONTROL Resonant was lifted, bringing in a new wave of exciting information and teasers ahead of the game's launch later this year.
The press event was scheduled following Resonant's impressive gameplay reveal at State of Play last month. Writing on Twitter, Remedy's Communications Director, Thomas Puha, explains, "This preview was always planned as an extension of the State of Play, as we obviously couldn’t get into every detail there, so this Extended Look was heavy on gameplay details. Of course, ultimately you gotta play it to get a feel for it."
Before we jump into our media roundup, we wanted to give a shout to a new post on the PlayStation Blog from Miika Huttunen (Senior Communications Manager at Remedy), which went live alongside the previews from the gaming media. In the article, we hear directly from the studio about Zoe De Vera's role, the narrative quest types, and the fast-paced action. You can read the full post HERE.
Now, let's look at those media previews! Select press and influencers were invited to one of two virtual events hosted by Remedy, which both featured a behind-closed-doors showcase of the game in action, followed by a Q&A session with Mikael Kasurinen (Creative Director) and Sergey Mokhov (Lead Game Designer).
Below is a collection of the reports from the event. As always, we'll keep this list updated with any new articles that surface:
Today, Poets of the Fall has shared a snippet of a very early version of their iconic song, Carnival of Rust, teasing back the curtain into what goes in throughout the iteration process.
In case you didn't know, 2026 marks the twentieth anniversary and the Carnival of Rust and the incredible song that gave the album its title. Perhaps their best known collection, the piece is still a standout in the Finnish music industry two decades later, and still rating high in those community-driven music leaderboards.
Their songs usually going through twn to thirty iterations before they're fully completed, and with Carnival of Rust they hit gold on the fourteenth version. In today's teaser, the main riff is played with an electric guitar, and with a slightly faster tempo.
If you're wondering why we're talking a lot about Poets of the Fall recently, you may know them by their alter-ego, Old Gods of Asgard. Their collaboration with Remedy started back in 2003, when their debut song, Late Goodbye, was featured in Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Later, they took on a different form, adopting the in-game name of Old Gods of Asgard for Alan Wake,Control, and Alan Wake 2.
Check out the full video from Poets of the Fall, HERE!
Transcript
Sound familiar?
This is an early demo of Carnival of Rust from around 2005
The main riff is played with an electric guitar.
The tempo is also slightly faster and the key is E.
It's a semitone higher in the final.
The lyrics already contain a lot of familiar phrases.
But we bet you can spit a few differences too.
This kind of sounds like the chorus we know, but also not?
This chorus would eventually become the 3rd chorus in the final version, with some lyric changes.
Typically each song goes through about 10 to 30 iterations until it done
Carnival of Rust (the released track) is vession 14
