Remedy cancels co-op multiplayer title Project Kestrel

thesixthaxis.com:

Remedy has announced that it has cancelled Project Kestrel, formerly (formerly Vanguard), which was in development with Tencent. Project Kestrel was meant to be Remedy’s first entry into the Games-as-a-Service business model. The cancellation has been announced as Remedy looks to focus on its existing catalogue of games and IP.

In an statement, Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala, said “Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage. 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.

With this cancellation, Remedy has stated its investment needs have changed and that it will now not need to recruit as much as previously thought. Project Kestrel is not Project Concord, it’s upcoming multiplayer spin-off from the shared universe of Control and Alan Wake 2. That game is set in a locked down Oldest House where players will work together to deal with the Hiss Invasion. Condor will also be a live service game, but it won’t be free-to-play. Instead it will be a “service-based fixed price” game. Remedy explain that “These are premium games that may have a lower initial price point but a long tail of revenue through updates, game expansions and potentially microtransactions. For these games, a key differentiator is the post-launch live operations phase meant to keep players engaged for years.”

Source: Remedy