31st December 2019 Year In Review [2019 Edition]

We're in the final stretch of 2019! It has been an incredible year and so much has happened; Control was launched, CROSSFIRE X was announced, plus Game Informer and IGN First gave us two months of Remedy coverage. We saw new faces in the community and new exciting artwork by talented cosplayers, artists and modders.

Today we're back with another rundown of what happened month-by-month. If you've visited us before, you'll know that it's a yearly tradition stretching back to our first year in the community; 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. We're glad to have spent the past year again with you all.

Here's what happened over the past twelve months...

	2018 - End of Year Review  2018 was a busy year with Control being announced at E3 2018, the reveal of the studio's new Vanguard development team, and with restructuring taking place throughout the company. It was a year which also paved the way for many announcements in 2019.
	January
	9th January - Remedy Turkey Becomes The Remedy Hub We started the year off with a new hub in the community! The Twitter channel was called Remedy Turkey before rebranding itself in Autumn to become The Remedy HUB! If you haven't already, make sure to follow them!
	11th January - Smilegate Releases CROSSFIRE HD Trailer We got the first glimpse of Remedy's single-player campaign from CROSSFIRE HD, titled Operation Frost, in a brand new trailer posted across social media.
	18th January - Hideo Kojima Visits Remedy’s New Studio In early January, the Control and Remedy channels were buzzing with photos and posts documenting Kojima's visit. So, it's safe to say that the developers were pretty excited about hosting both the Kojima Productions team and Apocalyptica.
	20th January - Machinima Removes Bright Falls & WTFB In late January, Machinima unexpectedly erased their entire catalogue of videos, following the company's merger with Otter Media. The catalogue used to contain the entire series of Bright Falls and Machinima's WTBF?! What The Bright Falls series.
	January - Community Spotlight: SuXin Our first Community Spotlight of 2019 was the talented SuXin whose hilarious Max Payne/Half-Life mod, Half-Payne, grabbed our attention.
	2nd February - Games Helsinki 2019 Games Helsinki 2019 was a one-day convention hosted by Epic Games and Housemarque and featured Juha Vainio (Lead Producer on Control) and Brooke Maggs (Narrative Designer) as guest speakers.
	.February
	4th February - The Sudden Stop Turns Seven Oh hey! We turned seven! Thank you to everyone who has supported and visited us these past 2558 days.
	5th February - Lunar New Year 2019 2019 was the Year of the Pig and to celebrate the year ahead, the incredible Carla drew a Lunar New Year card featuring the Remedy gang! We loved it!
	14th February - Control-Inspired Valentine’s Day Cards If you visited us in February before, you would know that we only celebrate February 14th in one way. Puns.
	20th February - Community Questions with Courtney Hope In a new video, Remedy's Associate Community Manager, Vida Starčević, asked fan-submitted questions to Control's Lead, Courtney Hope.
	22nd February - American Nightmare’s Anniversary In February, it was Alan Wake's American Nightmare's seventh anniversary. Alongside the community, we celebrated the milestone with a retrospective on the title!
	February - Community Spotlight: Carla Over the past three years, Carla has been treating us to dozens of gorgeous and creative pieces of artwork celebrating Remedy’s entire catalogue. In our February Community Spotlight, we celebrated her third anniversary in the community.
	March
	1st March - Jesse Faden’s Remedy Tour In a new promotion, Jesse Faden (portrayed by Courtney Hope) takes viewers on a tour of the Remedy offices and introduces fans to some of the developers working behind the game.
	5th March - Game Informer #312 Cover Announced In early March, Game Informer announced they would be focusing on Control throughout the month with brand new interviews and previews. The announcement came with the reveal of their April cover designed by Faraz Shanyar.
	8th March - International Women’s Day 2019 Celebrations March 8th marked International Women's Day! There were several posts across the community and studios commemorating the day and celebrating the incredible women in our lives.
	12th March - Control’s Cover Artwork Revealed Initially surfacing on International Women's Day, stores began using a new piece of Control artwork; a promotional image later used by the developers and publishers across social media.
	18-22nd March - Remedy at GDC This year's GDC was a busy one for the studio with lectures, invite-only parties, recruitment drives, and Control previews being held throughout the event.
	20th March - Control Exclusive to Epic Store at Launch [PC] In their GDC keynote, Epic Games revealed a list of upcoming games coming to their store, including Control, in a timed-exclusivity deal negotiated by 505Games.
	21st March - Payne To The Max Turns Seven Fellow fansite @PayneToTheMax celebrated their seventh anniversary! They are dedicated and passionate about the community and very lovely. If you haven't already, make sure to give them a follow!
	21st March - Release Date for Control Announced In late March, TrueAchievements reported a teaser on the Microsoft Store which reveals a number of digital preorder bonuses for Control, along with a potential release date. Later that day, Game Informer confirmed the date with a statement from Remedy.
	24th March - PayneReactor Celebrates 20 Years PayneReactor turned twenty this year! Originally called Insane Payne, the site was created by Kristian Brynie Hollund, in 1999. In 2013, Patrick took over the site and shifted its focus to Remedy's entire catalogue and similar story-driven games.
	26th March - GDC Embargo Lifts & Pre-Order Details In addition to pre-orders rolling out worldwide across three major platforms, March 26th also saw a media embargo being lifted on interviews and impressions from GDC.
	28- 31st March - Control at PAX East 505Games and Remedy were in attendance at PAX East this year, and for the first time ever, allowed the public to get their hands on a playable demo of the Control.
	March - Community Spotlight: Dasha's Remedy Artwork In addition to being a wonderful person and passion fan, Dasha has been treating the community to amazing sketches throughout 2019. [Art by Dasha].
	April
	1st April - Remedy’s “Technicolour Mode” April Fools In keeping with tradition, Remedy released this year's April Fools' Day joke; a revamped gameplay video showcasing their new “technicolour mode” for Control, which had apparently been added to the game following player feedback.
	5th April - Quantum Break’s Third Anniversary Quantum Break turned three in 2019! Alongside community celebrations, we wrote a couple of articles to commemorate the occasion including Community Shoutouts and Top 5 Moments.
	9th April - Control on Official PlayStation Magazine UK [161] In April, GamesRadar announced issue #161 of Official PlayStation Magazine featuring brand new promotional artwork for Control.
	10th April - Oliver Ödmark Discusses The Hiss In New Article 505Games' Community Manager, Lucas Liaskos, put together a new post for the Official Control website, featuring an interview with Remedy's Senior Concept Artist, Oliver Ödmark, to delve deeper into Control's mysterious enemy, The Hiss.
	11-13th April - Develop Reboot Blue 2019 Tero Virtala (CEO) took to the BongFish Stage at Reboot Develop Blue, to talk about the organisation transformation happening at Remedy, as Saku Lehtinen talked about the "Art of Storytelling - The Remedy Way".
	13th April - Petri Alanko & Martin Stig Andersen Join Control Concluding Tero Virtala's presentation at Reboot Develop Blue, the CEO showcased a teaser of an upcoming dev diary, which revealed the composers for Control; Petri Alanko and Martin Stig Andersen.
	15th April - Control Influencer and Press Event In London 505Games and Remedy held an Influencer and Press event at London's iconic Barbican Centre with a hands-on preview of the upcoming game.
	15th April - Narrative & Gameplay Livestream The topic of narrative and gameplay was at the heart of the mid-April livestream. Due to illness,  there was a last-minute change in guests with Vida joined on camera by Paul Ehreth and Clay Murphy.
	16th April - Control Press Event in Paris Remedy was in Paris directly after their London visit to talk all about Control to the French gaming press.
	18th April - Control Press Event in Germany With only a one day break in the middle of the European tour, Remedy reached Hamburg to talk about Control.
	23th April - VFX Livestream In their third Control livestream, Remedy focused on Control's impressive visual effects with guests; James Tottman (Senior VFX Artist) and Elmeri Raitanen (Lead VFX Artist).
	26th April - Remedy's Dev Day 2019 Remedy was back again with another Remedy Dev Day; an internal developer conference which allows all employees to attend a gaming expo without the need for international travel or personal expenditure.
	25th April - Control on EDGE Issue #332 Control was at the heart of the 332 issue of EDGE magazine. There were two editions of the issue; a normal in-store copy with a blood-red background and the game's pyramid logo in shiny silver, and a subscriber copy featuring a black background.
	29th April - Control Press Event In Spain Control's marketing team showcased their upcoming game to members of the press as they continued their international tour to Madrid.
	29th April - Control Press Event In Italy Millan and Italy were on the books for the next stop of the international press tour for Control.
	April -  Katerina's Deviant Art Group Our Community Spotlight for April was Katerina, a brilliant artist whose passion for the community led her to create a group for fellow fans on DeviantArt. The group turned one this year! [Art by Katerina].
	May
	3rd May - Sixth Developer Diary (Gameplay & Environments) In a new season of developer diaries, Remedy took a look at Control's customizable gameplay and destructive environments ("wrecking shop") as they put player choice and exploration in the spotlight.
	7th May - "Marshall Mission" Livestream Vida was joined by Thomas Puha (Communications Director) and Mikael Kasurinen (Game Director) as they delved deeper into a "Marshall" mission from the main game.
	10th May - Poets of the Fall's The Sweet Escape Video Out Filmed in the centre of Helsinki, the third music video of the Ultraviolet album, The Sweet Escape, follows in the footsteps of its predecessors; Dancing on Broken Glass and False Kings.
	11th May - Neogames' Review of the Finnish Games Industry In early May, Neogames published their review of the Finnish games industry. The document is 136 pages long and is packed with information on Finland's game history since 1979, the state of the industry, studio profiles, education, and support networks.
	15th May - Alan Wake’s 9th Anniversary The beloved 2010 title turned nine this year, and while Alan Wake 2 wasn't in development, there was still plenty of movement with the IP in the months that followed! [Plus: Community Creations] Art by InvisibleRain.
	15th May - Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest In mid-May, Ctrl Alt Ninja released their latest game, Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest. A number of familiar names are behind the tactical turn-based title including former Remedy developers; Petri Häkkinen, Antti Tiihonen, and Mikko Rautalahti.
	16th May - Poets of the Fall Releases Partir Avec Moi Released As part of their teased "double single", Poets of the Fall released their second music video and track of the month. The second piece is called Partir Avec Moi, a French translation of The Sweet Escape.
	24th May - Seventh Developer Diary: Setting the Atmosphere In the hot seat for the seventh developer diary was Martin Stig Andersen and Petri Alanko (the Composers for Control) and Ville Sorsa (Senior Sound Designer).
	May - Community Spotlight - Erika T For our May Community Spotlight, we had the wonderful Erika a brilliant in-game photographer and fellow Quantum Break fan, who shoots in above 4K. [Screenshot by Erika T.]
	June
	1st June - Petri Alanko’s Alan Wake OST returns to Spotify Starting off the month, Petri Alanko announced that the Alan Wake soundtrack was now back on Spotify and available to everyone! The music was originally available on the platform before being suddenly removed by the site for several months.
	3rd June - Martti Suosalo Joins Control Cast In early June it was announced that prolific Finnish actor, Martti Suosalo, would be joining Control's cast, portraying the quirky janitor, Ahti.
	6th June - Into The Pixel Winners Announced The winners of the Into The Pixel art comp were announced just ahead of E3, with Control artwork claiming two of the eleven spots! The first was The Hub, an in-game screenshot, by Remedy's Art Dept. The second (featured) is concept art called Mold-1 by Oliver Ödmark.
	9th June - Crossfire X Coming to XBOX One in 2020 At the XBOX E3 Media Briefing, Microsoft announced a partnership with Smilegate, the result of which will see their upcoming game, Crossfire X, launch on XBOX One in 2020, with a story mode developed by Remedy.
	11-13th June - E3 2019 E3 2019 was a big one for Remedy and 505Games with new interviews, impressions, articles, gameplay, and a lot more.
	14th June - Control Wiki Turns One  Our lovely fellow fansite, Control Wiki turned one this past June! The wiki was set up within hours after the game's announcement. Originally founded by jackkmart, the Wiki is now run by admin, Holly Nightmare.
	17th June - How To Fight The Hiss In the eighth developer diary, Remedy answered the question; how do you fight a sentient otherworldly virus-like entity that is corrupting your workplace?
	19th June - Bryan and Amelia Streams Control Sneak Peak Amelia Rose Blaire and fellow actor and streaming partner, Bryan Dechart, livestreamed a sneak preview of Remedy's upcoming game. The duo was joined by Thomas Puha who visited their base in person
	25th June - Directorial Override Livestream In late June, Remedy held their fifth Control livestream focusing on their E3 2019 demo, "Directorial Override" with Vida, Mikael, Brooke Maggs, and Thomas.
	June - Community Spotlight: K_Mentev June's Community Spotlight just had to be K_Mentev and their absolutely stunning Alan Wake portrait! [Art by K_Mentev]
	July
	1st July - Remedy Acquires Alan Wake Publishing Rights Remedy's Board of Directors released a press release announcing that the studios have now acquired the publishing rights to Alan Wake from Microsoft which had previously held console exclusivity.
	1st July - Redhill Games Acquires $11.4m for First Project In July, Redhill Games raised $11.4 million in funding from investors led by Makers Fund and Play Ventures, with fiancing from Kowloon Nights. The funding will go towards the development of their first game and hiring additional staff.
	5-6th July - Guardian Con 2019 The studios were showcasing their upcoming title, which was playable on the show floor for attendees, as well as collecting contact details of content creators who signed on at their "Creator Registration" table.
	9th July - Supermassive Talks To Shawn Ashmore Revealed at Gamescom 2018, Supermassive's new game, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, featured Quantum Break's, Shawn Ashmore. In a new video series, he delves into his character and experiences on set.
	15th July - Alan Wake Joins Epic Store Announced in mid-July for an August release, Ubisoft's For Honor and Remedy's Alan Wake joined The Epic Store. Alan Wake would later be one of the games selected for the store's cloud saving option.
	24th July - Control Turns Gold Remedy's Game Director, Mikael Kasurinen announced that Control reached Gold in late July, just over four weeks before its launch.
	29th July - Control’s Story Trailer In the official Story Trailer, we heard from "P7", a prisoner portrayed by Sean Durrie whose recent dream about the Hiss is a horrifyingly close comparison to reality.
	July - IGN First Throughout July, IGN spotlighted Control with exclusive articles, interviews and previews lasting across four weeks.
	July - Mister No Life's In-Depth Retrospectives Our July Community Spotlight was the utterly amazing Mister No Life whose dedication and attention to detail really shows in all of his YouTube retrospectives.
	August
	3rd August - Ninth Dev Diary: Audio #2 In Control's ninth dev diary, we returned to the audio team, this time focusing on the instruments that went into creating the game's unique soundtrack. Returning in the hot seat is Ville Sorsa, Petri Alanko and Martin Stig Andersen.
	4th August - PC Specifications for Control revealed After an accidental reveal on the Epic Store website, Remedy clarified the PC specifications for Control in early August which reduced the minimal requirements needed.
	6th August - “What Is Control” Video Series Launches Ahead of the game's launch, Remedy and 505Games launched a new video series called "What Is Control" which introduced new gamers to the title.
	13th August - Bi-Annual Financial Report H1 2019 In mid-August, Remedy published their financial report covering the first half of 2019. The report covered new management, the studio's direction, timed exclusivity for Control, and employee growth.
	20th - 24th August - Gamescom 2019 Gamescom 2019 was the final major event before the launch of Control on August 27th. For a last-minute promotional push, a team from Remedy travelled to Germany to showcase the game at their booth and talk about the upcoming adventure to the press.
	22nd August - Poets of the Fall Partnership Continues In late August, Poets of the Fall and Remedy announced the continuation of their partnership with Control. The reveal came in the form of a video featuring Sam Lake (Creative Director) and Marko Saaresto (Vocalist).
	24th August - Women's Equality Day 2019 Just days before the launch of Control, 505Games teamed up with a select number of female streamers for an exclusive first look at the game, in celebration of Women's Equality Day.
	26th August - Preview Embargo Lifts for Control On the eve of Control's launch, the press embargo lifted revealing of a wave of new game reviews. [Screenshot by Dead End Thrills].
	27th August - CONTROL LAUNCHES Control launched in late August on PC, XBOX One, and PlayStation 4! The release led to a new wave of community creations!
	28th August - Control Launches In Korea Control launched in Korea on PS4 and XBOX One on August 28th. The publisher was local-studio H2-Interactive.
	29th August - Control Livestream Raises $4,250 for St Jude's 505Games' Influencer Relations, Slate, held a day-long Control livestream which raised $4,250 for St Jude's Children's Research Center. Special guests included Courtney Hope and Sam Lake.
	30th August - PAX West 2019 Just days after Control's launch, the dev team travelled to Seattle (US) to showcase the game at the Discord, PlayStation, and 505games booths, with Thomas and Brooke representing the title at the show.
	August - Community Spotlight, Vyxenah Vyxenah's brilliant Jesse Faden cosplay caught our attention in August, that we just had to make her our Community Spotlight. [Photo by Vyxenah]
	September
	11th September - Control’s Content Map Revealed In a new blog post for the Control website, Thomas and Mikael broke down the studio's plans for the year ahead.
	12th-15th September - Tokyo Game Show Thomas travelled to Japan to attend the Tokyo Game Show ahead of Control's December 12th launch.
	30th September - My Dark Disquiet Music Video Out After teases on the official social media channels, Poets of the Fall released their latest music video, My Dark Disquiet. While sharing qualities with Control, the video is very much its own entity and has its own take on the New Weird genre.
	September - ArtStation Filled with Control Concept Artwork Following the launch of Control, the talented artists behind the game published their work on ArtStation, filling the pages with concept artwork, costumes, 3D models and more!
	September - Kicky's Take Control Artwork We fell in love with Kicky's amazing Take Control artwork, featuring Jesse rocking out to the game's memorable song.
	October
	1st October - MainFrame Industries Founded In October, Mainframe Industries announced the launch of their new company, with two studios across two countries sharing a unique goal. The studio was partially founded by former Remedy developers.
	16th October - Control’s Photo Mode Revealed After a lot of community and press interest, Remedy launched their much-anticipated Photo-Mode for Control, a free addition across all platforms.
	17th October - American Nightmare Comes to The Epic Store Remedy's 2012 arcade adventure, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, joined its predecessor on The Epic Store, temporarily becoming a free title for its first week.
	17 - 20th - EGX 2019 505Games travelled to EGX in London to promote a number of their games including Control. Across the long weekend, giveaways were held on the game's Twitter page with prizes presented to attendees.
	18th October - Remedy Closes Down Community Forums After almost fifteen years online, the studio closed down the Community Forums.
	31st October - Control’s Threshold Kids Halloween Special For Halloween, we wrote a special Halloween article delving into the weird world of Control's Threshold Kids.
	October - Community Spotlight, James Bowers With MCM London Expo approach, James made the leap to make his first cosplay appearance at the event, choosing Control's Dr Casper Darling's look for the occasion.
	November
	5th November - Kathy Tong’s Debut Book Launches Kathy Tong, the actress and model who portrayed the badass Mona Sax in Max Payne II: The Fall of Max Payne, published her first novel in early November. Not-Quite-Supermodel follows the adventures of Alex as she moves to New York to become a model.
	9th November - Official XBOX Magazine's 100 Top Games To close out the decade, Official XBOX Magazine published their top 100 titles which included Alan Wake and Quantum Break.
	14th November - Server Launches Following Forums Closure Remedy's Media Unit launched the Remedy Discord server to replace the Community Forums.
	15th November - Control Wins Golden Joystick Control took home the Critics' Choice Award Golden Joystick at the London-based event this year.
	18th November - X019 Event Reveals CROSSFIRE X Trailer At their X019, Microsoft showcased a brand new look at CROSSFIRE X, with a trailer and a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the studios bringing the game to life.
	19th November - Sergey Mohov Takes Part in AMA Remedy's Senior Game Designer took to the Control Discord Server for a special AMA. The first AMA held on the channel.
	November - Community Spotlight, Halloween Creations The Remedy Community created a fantastic number of Halloween creations from new fan art to fan carvings. These wonderful pieces made up our November Community Spotlight. [Artwork by Evil-Owl-Loki].
	December
	10th December - Control Wins Four IGN Awards Control wins big in the IGN 2019 Awards, taking home Best Action/Adventure, Best Story, Best Art Direction, and Game of the Year.
	12th December - Control Launches in Japan Remedy's latest game, Control, launches as a PS4-exclusive in Japan with local-publisher, Marvellous.
	13th December - The Game Awards 2019 In addition to Control winning "Best Art Direction" at The Games Awards, fans were also treated to a special performance of Sankarin Tango, in the show's GOTY medley.
	13th December - Expeditions DLC Launches During The Game Awards, Remedy announced their new DLC, Expeditions, a free to play expansion that rolled out during the show on PC, XBOX One, and PS4.
	18th December - Alan Wake Returns to Microsoft Store Alan Wake returned to the Microsoft Store after a thirty-two-month hiatus. The game was originally removed due to expiring music licenses in May 2017, and began returning to stores in October 2018.
	23rd December - A Conversation with Kathy Tong Following the launch of Kathy's debut book, Not-Quite-Supermodel, we spoke to the wonderful author about her experiences bringing the story to life.

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