In my opinion, this is a really interesting and fundamental question: whether Remedy’s game focus is correct. I admit right away that I haven’t personally played current Remedy games, as my own active gaming period was in the 1990s and 2000s… I do consider it clear that a game studio the size of Remedy must have a rather clear focus – an attempt to make games ‘across the board’ and for some assumed ‘masses’ would be doomed to fail, because the competition in the field of different types of games is so tough. Remedy’s unsuccessful multiplayer experiments also support the notion that a shoemaker should stick to their last. In my opinion, Remedy’s orientation towards story-driven survival horror and action games is fundamentally very good, but it can certainly be discussed whether the games should nevertheless be somehow more appealing to the masses.
I disagree that Remedy should start making games suitable for children and young people as well. Remedy has a good style in its games, and they should and must just focus on that. It has been noticed a few times already that when they have ventured from their own area of expertise into other styles, they have been complete flops…
Edit. And when comparing, for example, to RE4, it was said that the story is irrelevant but it’s fun to play. I agree with this; indeed, when I play, if the game is just damn good in terms of gameplay etc., then the whole story is forgotten.
Remedy should also focus more on gameplay, and the story should only come second. It’s true that no matter how brilliant a story a game has, but it’s absolute crap to play, then I’d rather watch a movie. There are several games where, especially when I was younger, I didn’t even think about the whole story but just played on.
Storytelling and niche genres (noir, agency sci-fi, folk horror) where Remedy has operated in the discomfort zone of big game companies have been both Remedy’s strongest and most successful area. Why the hell would Remedy, at this point, with this track record, in this market situation, try to appeal to the masses or young people instead of 100% focusing on the couple of IPs (+Max Payne) that people might associate with the name Remedy? Especially since they might know them even if they probably don’t know what a game company like Remedy even is.
Now would be a unique opportunity, even financially, to make those Remedy games for which new releases are coming for all, and which continue the games that made Remedy Remedy. Gameplay and story are not mutually exclusive, and a worse story is unlikely to help the success of the gameplay in any way. So, full steam ahead with the story, and gameplay is what it is. Others can then speculate online whether it failed when the story is so good. 
Investing in the story also consumes resources that could have been used to improve gameplay. A golden mean should be found here. Because even if the story is ever so interesting and unique, many will throw the controller aside if the gameplay falters.
Isn’t a game’s success measured specifically by player numbers? That’s why the masses. Additionally, young people and children play more than adults. That’s where the masses come from. Another question is, does the game’s theme have to be about killing others by shooting or beating them? Remedy can surely make spectacular games without killing anyone. Unfortunately, most games seem to be various shooting/survival games?
I know many won’t like this, and I’ve brought it up here before, but Mario Odyssey is a good example of an entertaining family game that has also sold relatively well, I guess. I even managed to play it with my bored middle-aged brain, even though my more active gaming years were during the C64 and Amiga 500 eras.
The wider the audience targeted, the more competition. I strongly believe that Remedy is best positioned to succeed specifically in winning over more narrowly defined segments. Of course, I’m not saying that new experiments shouldn’t be made, as the company’s game catalog won’t expand if entirely new ideas aren’t tried – these experiments should ideally draw from the strengths of previous games, as game studios are typically masters of their “own thing.”
From Remedy’s game catalog, Control is excellent in the sense that it doesn’t have as significant genre restrictions as Alan Wake 2 (which is still strongly limited partly by the fact that the game is not available on Steam). In my opinion, Control 2 has the potential to reach a significantly wider audience, as the action-adventure genre appeals to considerably more people than survival horror.
If the game mechanics in Control 2 are excellent, the story engaging, and the release timing favorable, the game has great potential for success. Your entire investment thesis currently relies on this success, alongside the Max Payne Remake.
So, once again, Remedy should make games they have no experience or expertise in. Can you list any successful family games on consoles not made by Nintendo? Making those is perhaps even more hopeless than a successful multiplayer game. By the way, the average age of players is over 40, and in the big picture, the players generating cash flow are completely different from children and young people.
Is there any research on this? If so, I’m happy to be wrong.
Stereotypes persist that only men in their twenties play. That demographic doesn’t really sustain a 200 billion market.
Generally, the average age of players is 35-40, and genders are approximately 50-55% men and 45-50% women, depending slightly on the study/survey. In the US, the average age is slightly lower than the global average. As @Relaaja writes, purchasing power and monetary spending on games naturally increase with age.
This study has a couple of big flaws:
- The survey was only conducted for those over 16. Surprisingly, the average age is what it is.
- Since mobile gaming accounts for over 60% of all gaming, it’s not surprising that the age distribution and the distribution between men and women are quite close to the age and gender distribution of a completely randomly selected group… meaning the study could have been done better, and as such, it tells less about what kind of audience, for example, console games appeal to.
But yeah, if children are excluded and mobile games are counted, this is the result.
As a little tidbit:
Courtney Hope (aka Jesse Faden) showed off the hidden depths of her closets on her Instagram story over the weekend, where, among other things, the script for the game Control was found. Sami Järvi had also shared this on his own story feed. The story might not be available anymore, but Courtney’s comments about the script went something like this:
”Look at this amount of dialog, huge credits to the writers of the game. And you know, we also have a second one coming soon, so I need to dig into this and do some catching up…”
So, less surprisingly, this can be considered confirmation that Courtney Hope will (at least to some extent) reprise her role as Jesse Faden in Control 2.
If one takes speculation/conclusions a bit further from that, it could mean that voice actors’ line readings are coming soon, and she dug it out of the closet to refresh her memory of Control 1 before these. Or it could be a coincidence.
According to AI, line readings in AAA games are done in the middle of the production phase, after which animators then do the lipsyncs etc. If line readings were to start now, e.g., in Q4-Q1, and the game moved into production in February 2024, one could cautiously interpret that the game is “on schedule” compared to the analyst’s H1’2027 forecast, but I wouldn’t give too much weight to this speculation.
Let’s wait and see if there’s an announcement at TGA 
It’s very early. I don’t see any point in hyping a game that’s over a year away this early. The fact that the game is under development is already known, so it would really require a proper trailer, and I personally expect one at the earliest in half a year.
Good interim report considering known factors. No surprises in the numbers, of course.
A few quick highlights from the first read.
Perhaps some kind of “tone shift” noticeable in the interim report.
Cash flow strong, liquid assets rose to €36.5M. Very important to have a war chest until Control 2 release.
Presumed “Alan Wake 3” progressed to Proof of Concept
For AW2, the strongest quarter of the year (wow!), Control and AW2 expansion to Eastern markets initial experiences successful.
Edit: Corrected Q3 operating cash flow image, previously the image showed 1-9/2025 cash flow
“I took on the role of CEO on October 22nd, with the intention of raising standards and the sense of urgency throughout the organization…”
An interestingly phrased goal. As an employee, it might be annoying if you’ve been working at your capacity limits for the company for the past few years.
I suspect that the phrase is a bit poorly translated from English. “Sense of urgency” is probably the original term.
Yeah, this statement was apparently also scrutinized on Reddit, and speculation began that employees would now be squeezed for blood and tears. I wouldn’t interpret a single comment from the interim-CEO’s texts as a major policy change in Remedy’s way of working. Instead, I see this as a kind of shake-up within Remedy, indicating that they shouldn’t become too complacent about their own excellence, but rather high-quality games must be released on schedule. If you listen to how Mäki speaks about Remedy in today’s presentation, you get a much softer impression than the text of that press release. There is indeed trust in the company’s expertise, but now the wrong kind of products have simply emerged – and that’s management’s mistake.
Mäki stated in the presentation’s Q&A that he doesn’t consider communicating the final development stages of games in production a good practice with every quarterly report, because in long-term projects, relatively little is accomplished during a single quarter. This, at least to me, also indicates that they want to give the teams peace to work.
Markus’s interview hadn’t found its way into the thread yet. Here it is, enjoy!
The number of employees has grown. I wonder if those are other than game developers.
We reiterate our buy recommendation for Remedy and a target price of 17.0 euros. With preliminary information and a profit warning, the Q3 figures were already known for the main lines, and the report did not cause any significant changes to our forecasts.
[…]
We no longer forecast revenue from game sales for FBC: Firebreak, but estimate that the game will still generate approximately 4 MEUR in b2b payments from Sony and Microsoft between Q4’25 and Q2’26. We previously estimated that the company would make staff reductions to downsize the game team, but we now estimate that cost adjustments will occur more through a reduction in subcontracting and possibly to some extent through natural attrition. Thus, our previous assumptions about the overall cost structure remain unchanged. Our forecast expects revenue of 58.7 MEUR (+16%) and an operating loss of -14.0 MEUR for this year. We forecast EBITDA to be a positive 12.2 MEUR.