Remedy's Free-to-Play Game Vanguard Rebooted as Kestrel, Now a Premium Co-op Game - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 13 November 2023 / 2,745 Views
Remedy Entertainment has announced its plans to reboot development on the cooperative, free-to-play multiplayer game project codenamed Vanguard.
The game has been given a new codename of Kestrel. It will now be a premium game "with a strong, cooperative multiplayer component."
The reason for this change is due to the "rapidly changing free-to-play market and associated risks." The reboot of the game comes as it "reached the end of its proof-of-concept phase."
Kestrel will return to the concept phase and part of the development team will move to work on other games at Remedy. The core leadership and select members of the development team will focus on the new direction.
We have made some great strides in free-to-play and multiplayer development in Vanguard," said Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala. "After a lot of careful consideration, we believe that taking on a new direction where the game will be built more around Remedy’s core competences is the right way to go. We are creating another distinct Remedy game with Tencent’s continued support in making a great cooperative multiplayer experience."
Remedy Entertainment last month released Alan Wake 2 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Epic Games Store. The developer is also working on Control 2, the Max Payne 1&2 remake, and more.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Considering that Vanguard began development in 2018 and still didn't have so much as a screenshot released as of late 2023, I can't say I'm surprised that they are rebooting it, seems like it's development was a hot mess.
I'd rather they had just ended it altogether, because I feel like Remedy should stick to what they excel at, story driven singleplayer games like Alan Wake and Control, but sadly they are keeping it going, now as a premium co-op game instead of F2P. Their Project Condor game is also co-op, set in the Control universe (rumored to be based around the missions of a Federal Bureau of Control Ranger squad; Rangers are FBC's special forces. they go into Thresholds to other dimensions). Seems like Remedy really wants to get into co-op for some reason.
Remedy seems to be trying to establish a steady stream of revenue from their games. Trying to avoid having to rely on outside funding to get their games out.
Offtopic but I hadn't seen the word "Kestrel" being used since Splinter Cell: Conviction where one of the characters in a co-op campaign is code-named Kestrel. That was some sweet co-op content to play couch co-op with a friend/family member. Man, they don't make co-op games like they used to.
