If my notes are correct, AW2 moved into production in August 2021, and around this time Control 2 was apparently in the concept stage only:
And AW2 was released a little over two years later in October 2023. Of course, Control 2 was exceptional in that it was in the concept stage for a very long time, probably over a year and a half (considering that concepting usually takes 3-6 months according to Remedy’s general schedule). After that, Control 2 moved to the POC stage in Q1 2023:
Again, Control 2 was in the POC stage until around Q1-2 2024. Again, this roughly one-year POC stage is slightly longer than usual in Remedy’s schedules:
Then at the beginning of 2025, Control 2 moved into production, meaning this production readiness stage also lasted nearly a year:
Comparing it to AW2’s roughly two-year production period, I would have assumed that Control 2 would be finished in late 2026/early 2027. Of particular note here is that MPR entered full production during Q2-3 2024, which means Remedy has had two projects in full production in 2025. In the comments above, you can see that Control 2 moved into production at the point when MPR had already made “excellent progress in full production.” Also noting that MPR is not quite the same kind of project as Control 2 since there isn’t the same need to create something entirely new, even though the MP games are indeed being remade from scratch.
For this reason, my own assumption was that MPR would be released in H1 2026 as it went into production before Control 2. Since all Max Payne games are at most approx. 10h games, I thought it would have been logical for that MPR package to be ready well before Control 2. I would have added about six months of development to that, so that the resources freed up from MPR could potentially assist in finalizing Control 2, with the game then being ready for release in early 2027.
From this, one could conclude that the long concept/POC/production readiness stages for Control 2 have genuinely helped the project’s progress during the production phase, because the game is being released approx. 1.5 years after entering production (estimates remain imprecise until the release date is known). At the same time, Remedy’s capability to handle two simultaneous or partially overlapping production-stage projects seems to be at a reasonably good level. Going forward, it’s worth considering whether we can assume that two simultaneous production phases won’t necessarily hinder each other in the same way as, for example, AW2 acted as an obstacle to the progress of other projects. Now, as the release of Control 2 approaches, it is also good to follow commentary related to MPR and conduct a status review of where all projects stand, as on a general level it seems that Remedy has reached that critical point where the production model is starting to fall into place.
