Remedy - The pride of Finnish AAA games (Part 2)

[Akee]

@Aruzo

This Resonant gameplay trailer hasn’t really generated massive hype. It looks pretty much like standard fare compared to other clips from the event.

I’ve gathered view counts from some State of Play trailers below

Since the reaction and view counts for the gameplay reveal remained lackluster on the forum, I did a sanity check on the matter just in case my own view was becoming reliant on my own and others’ negative cognitive biases or internet fringe culture. Sentiment around Remedy has been pessimistic for a long time, and admittedly for good reason.

As a follow-up to @Aruzo’s good list, I gathered all the State of Play YouTube trailers from the PlayStation channel into a table and sorted them by like percentage. Comparing view counts alone can be misleading when up against IPs like God of War, Silent Hill, Castlevania, and John Wick – all undeniably larger IPs than Control.

12.2 State of Play trailers (+ Resonant announce) from the PlayStation channel

Game	Trailer	Views	Likes	Dislikes	Like ratio
Control Resonant (TGA’25)	Announce	1.8M	72,262	633	99.13%
Control Resonant	Gameplay Reveal	308k	16,881	313	98.18%
Resident Evil: Requiem	4th	657k	38,152	169	99.56%
Untitled John Wick Game	Announce	2.6M	168,315	789	99.53%
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 2	Announce	382k	21,732	176	99.20%
Kena: Scars of Kosmora	Announce	440k	27,217	181	99.34%
Dead or Alive: New Project	Teaser	217k	8,734	110	98.76%
God Of War Trilogy Remake	Announce	2.6M	212,516	2,679	98.76%
Death Stranding 2	PC Announce	117k	4,978	88	98.26%
Pragmata	World	141k	5,928	112	98.15%
Crimson Moon	Announce	115k	4,511	85	98.15%
Project Windless	Reveal	491k	20,917	405	98.11%
Star Wars: Galactic Racer	Gameplay	235k	8,075	158	98.08%
Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered	Announce	120k	5,633	117	97.97%
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse	Announce	445k	23,907	520	97.87%
Big Walk	Announce	68k	3,901	96	97.60%
Beast of Reincarnation	Release date	230k	8,119	208	97.50%
Dead or Alive 6: Last Round	Announce	103k	4,855	129	97.41%
007: First Light	Story	288k	14,218	483	96.71%
Rev: Noir	Teaser	137k	4,054	143	96.59%
Brigadine Abyss	Teaser	63k	1,809	71	96.22%
Neva: Prologue	Reveal	46k	1,723	72	95.99%
Saros	Gameplay Overview	176k	6,274	313	95.25%
Yakoh Shinobi Ops	Announce	101k	3,083	192	94.14%
God of War: Sons of Sparta	Reveal	1.5M	60,366	3,922	93.90%
Silent Hill: Townfall	Reveal	547k	28,418	3,365	89.41%
Ghost of Yotei: Legends	Release date	175k	7,079	944	88.23%
Marathon	Launch Gameplay	96k	2,936	2,021	59.23%
4:Loop	Gameplay Deep Dive	65k	1,403	1,619	46.43%

Resonant appears to be the 8th best trailer in terms of like ratio. To quote the Chernobyl miniseries: “Not Great, Not Terrible”. However, it’s preceded by announcement/teaser trailers for major IPs, which tend to garner high likes.

If the game’s trailer were the most viewed and liked at the Sony event, or if it were competing with IPs larger than itself, the stock price should be something completely different than what it is right now.

As @Henkka listed streamers earlier, I personally haven’t encountered a single negative or contemplative comment about the gameplay yet, after checking the reactions of 5+ well-known streamers on YouTube.

The video below is a compilation of different streamers’ reactions. It includes streamers who have previously been either indifferent or negatively inclined toward Remedy’s games, such as Luke Stevens or Asmongold. Also, MoistCr1TiKaL, who (deservedly) tore Firebreak to pieces, reacted positively to the trailer.

This sanity check definitely calmed my mind regarding Resonant. While the trailer wasn’t bad, it didn’t exactly blow everyone away the same way the announcement trailer did. This wasn’t the trailer used to open pre-orders, and that’s probably for the best.

However, I remain confident in the game, waiting to see what is shown in the next trailers. Despite everything, this looks much more interesting in terms of gameplay than Alan Wake 2.

[Pohjolan_Eka]

@Akee

Resonant seems to be the 8th best trailer in terms of like ratio. To quote the Chernobyl miniseries: “Not Great, Not Terrible”. However, there are upcoming announce/teaser trailers for major IPs, which tend to gather a lot of likes.

I think that’s a spot-on interpretation, because the gameplay video was, to use youth slang, “Solid mid,” and didn’t really stir up any feelings one way or the other regarding gameplay or the environment. Of course, it’s cool to get to beat up aliens from a dimensional rift in New York with a superhero character and wreck those big flying boss creatures, but I think Avengers did it better back in 2012:

Avengers vs Chitauri Army (Part 2) - Final Battle Scene - Movie CLIP HD

No, you don’t get extra creativity points for the fact that the game environment is set, unlike Avengers, in the 2010 hit movie Inception:

Inception - Physics Scene (City Bending) [HD]

This would have been a hell of a game 15 years ago, but the Spider-Man and Batman games have raised the bar for urban superhero brawlers really high over the last decade, so Remedy faces a tough challenge to get the animations and the feel of the gameplay to a level where the game would be competitive. As a bonus, though, there’s at least a clear roadmap now; instead of the usual Remedy-style aimless experimentation (Remedyhäröily), the developers now have a clear roadmap on how the game should be built to achieve high sales.

@Akee

Another concern relates to the narrative of the trailer shown. The world was great, but the conversation between Dylan and Zoe was worryingly generic AAA slop. Some on the internet were memeing “Focus M” in the trailer comments (“Focus M” meme explained). It would be sad and worrying if Remedy turns its narrative strength into a weakness in hopes of reaching a more casual player base. Surely there are enough examples in the industry of what happens commercially to games when players are underestimated.

I have to challenge you on this. It’s really hard to place narrow gaps for the character to squeeze through in an open city environment, so how on earth could Remedy signal to players that this is a AAA game, other than by putting AAA dialogue in it?

AAA games have to squeeze through gaps?

Focus, M is an amateur parody that, unlike real AAA dialogue, contains funny references that an enlightened listener can ponder during the video. Remedy’s masterpiece is on a completely different level compared to that; it’s crafted as if the guys had put the hosts of Aamulypsy (a Finnish radio show) into a blender, fed the result to ChatGPT, and asked it to compile a BuzzFeed top 10 list of dialogue between game characters. I have never in my life heard such high-grade AAA game dialogue, and even though there’s still time until release, I think we’re already a strong contender for the Best Audio Design category at The Game Awards at this stage.

[Trivial]

@Pohjolan_Eka

I have to challenge this. It’s really hard to place narrow bottlenecks in an open city environment that the player character has to squeeze through, so how on earth could Remedy otherwise communicate to players that this is a full-priced AAA game than by putting AAA dialogue in the game?

Remedy’s Quantum Break was already a perfect AAA game; the tutorial was nothing but squeezing into tight spaces. Maybe Control Resonant is the new AAAA game promised by Ubisoft, which reinforces the delusion of a company worth over €10? The current valuation requires Control 2 to be an AAAAA game. Think about that for a moment.

I’m still honestly surprised that no shareholder has asked about Vanguard and found out what went wrong, what the game actually was, and what on earth happened during those 6 years. Nor has anyone questioned the existence of the Stockholm studio.

You’d think at least some owner would pick up the phone and grill the CEO on what on earth happened. What went wrong and why didn’t any heads roll?

The forum also seems to have just accepted that the project came and went, just like Firebreak came and CrossfireX went. The analyst has been completely out to lunch for 4 years already, but you’d think at least some shareholder would be interested in where your money is being wasted when everything has gone wrong and money is just burning.

[Spwni]

@Akee

But I had the same first impression - is the combat too slow for today’s dopamine-saturated player base, and is the “oomph” factor missing, i.e., are the ragdolls and other effects of melee combat hits too lackluster?

Somehow, the assessment of the combat has been emphasized a bit too much, at least here. But the reactions can also be interpreted as a sign that the marketing has room for improvement.

Since it’s an action RPG, presumably both the move set and many combat parameters (speed, Dylan’s strength, etc.) change as the game progresses. The beginnings of games are often quite clunky, so perhaps presenting the game mechanics this way isn’t particularly representative. Let’s hope future clips show what kind of diversity there is in the mechanics and what they bring to the game.

To my eye, the game has a slightly muddy look, but so did the first part in places. It’s hard to comment on the game’s overall look based on just one area.

At least Remedy showed actual gameplay, but marketing also needs to create an impression of what it feels like to play. As a counter-example, take Wolverine’s (in my opinion) misleadingly named “gameplay trailer,” which actually consisted only of quick clips of scripted scenes. You see almost nothing of what happens under the player’s control, but the vibe comes across.

Marvel’s Wolverine - Gameplay Trailer | PS5 Games

[Henkka]

@Spwni

At least Remedy actually showed gameplay, but marketing also needs to create an impression of how it feels to play. Let’s take Wolverine’s, in my opinion, misleadingly named “gameplay trailer” as a counterpart, which actually consisted of just quick clips of scripted scenes. Not much of what happens in the game under the player’s control is shown, but the vibe comes across.

Remedy used this same approach in the announcement trailer and in the hook at the beginning of this latest trailer. Showing “cinematic” gameplay where HUDs are removed and a little vignette is added to the image. You can see that these are effective concepts to sell exactly that feeling, and perhaps their use could be increased a bit in the future.

In the first 15 seconds, they manage to show 10 different locations from the game. Three different weapon forms. A couple of abilities and at least two different boss enemies as well as several different enemy types. In my opinion, at least the success of the trailer’s hook is nearly perfect, and you can see from the reaction videos how well streamers are made to focus on the rest of the trailer.

Regarding the gameplay section itself that has been discussed most on the forum (0:20 - 2:00), a few observations:

• Kasurinen mentions that this specific part is from the early stages of the game - However, the player’s build is quite clearly more from the end of the game based on the health and the damage dealt.
• Enemy reactions in many places seem to be scripted. In the first encounter targeting clearly triggers but aggression does not. The two remaining enemies don’t attack while the player in the trailer focuses on demonstrating traversal (what would be a good Finnish equivalent for this?).
• In the second encounter (1:18) the first enemies don’t react practically at all and the health of the largest enemy is set to 50% beforehand, apparently so that the abilities work right away
  
  
• The second enemy in the second encounter (1:21) who is on the right only reacts when the player goes to a clearly defined trigger point. You can hear how the enemy’s aggro triggers at this specific spot where the player stops
  
  
• After this, finishing blows are shown and the remaining 40s of this “raw” gameplay video is a repetition of the previous traversal and different combat mechanics regarding abilities and weapon features.

After this section, the trailer switches to the middle ground between cinematic gameplay and raw gameplay, where there are good 3-5 second clips of a battle against a mini-boss. After this, some general atmosphere and a hook about a boss at the end.

Clearly, the purpose of that raw gameplay section was to show traversal and different abilities and weapon modes. I agree with @Spwni that judging by the reactions, this failed in some respects as the focus went to completely the wrong place. Otherwise, as a whole, it’s quite a successful trailer.

The trailer does show the diversity of enemy types and different environments very well. When taking into account previous Remedy games, the lack of enemy types has repeatedly come up in criticism. Here they are clearly trying to improve significantly.

The biggest downside or risk for me was also the generic AAA narrative mentioned by @Akee. Fortunately, there was only one spot where this really jarred. Let’s hope that hasn’t been shoved into every moment of the game.

[Spwni]

@Henkka

A few observations on that actual gameplay segment that’s been the main topic of discussion on the forum (0:20 - 2:00)

My own hypothesis regarding these is that it’s a showcase build, where the risks of the player character getting beaten have been minimized.

[heskelin]

Having performed such a deep analysis, can you speculate why on earth the trailer features a speaker struggling with clunky “tankero” English who sounds like they are about to fall asleep, lacking all enthusiasm, praise, and grandiosity? Is the speaker so high up in the organization that no one dares tell them that it’s maybe not a good idea… Embarrassing.

My own investment case with Remedy rests on Resonant. In my excitement after the first reveal, I doubled my position, but this certainly left a flatter taste in my mouth.

[Akee]

@heskelin

why on earth has a speaker who speaks clumsy English (tankeroenglantia) and sounds like they’re about to fall asleep been shoehorned into the trailer, someone who lacks all enthusiasm, praise, and grandiosity? Is the speaker so high up in the organization that no one dares tell them it might not be a good idea.. Embarrassing.

No one but Finns knows how to be ashamed of “Rally English” (rallienglanti). Better to just embrace it, i.e., “own it.”

It is likely largely thanks to Kasurinen that Control is a well-known gaming IP (of GOTY caliber) in the first place. It’s quite smart for both the company and investors to reduce the key person risk associated with Sami Järvi by delegating responsibility, power, and the spotlight to other talents in the company.

The last thing this “trailer-gate” needs is some generic, artificially upbeat Hollywood or AI voice narrating the gameplay.

As far as I’m concerned, Rally English can keep on singing in the future. At least it stands out from all the other generic crap. Ahti speaks that same Rally English, and the players love it.

[Umpi]

DF Direct Weekly #251: God of War Trilogy, MGS 4, Silent Hill Townfall, Control Resonant!

Digital Foundry, ladies and gentlemen. From 51:35.

The forum is being negative, while others are hyping it up.

[Henkka]

@heskelin

After performing such a deep analysis, can you speculate why on earth they have crammed the trailer with a speaker struggling with “tankero” English (tankeroenglanti) who sounds like they’re about to fall asleep, lacking all enthusiasm, praise, and grandiosity?

If it were up to me, they would speak Finnish or really thick “rally English” (ralli-englanti) there. Finns just happen to be flat in their speech, and often this exoticism is actually a differentiator.

@Akee

The only thing missing from this “trailer-gate” would be if they threw in a generic, fake-perky Hollywood or AI voice to narrate the gameplay.

As far as I’m concerned, let the rally English keep on singing. At least it stands out from all the other generic crap. Ahti speaks that same rally English and players love it.

Completely agree. I don’t understand this strange culture of subservience prevailing in Finland. Mostly, guys from Japanese game studios speak Japanese at events and an interpreter translates. It nicely doubles the visibility time at the same time.

[Henkka]

@heskelin

My own investment case with Remedy relies on Resonant. In my excitement after the first release, I doubled my position, but this definitely left a more lackluster taste in my mouth.

In all good spirits—and this message can be moved elsewhere or flagged, as it is not an investment recommendation or advice. It’s mainly just an observation that occurred to me.

Based on my experience as a Remedy investor, I can say that this is still minor, and it is entirely possible that we could receive all sorts of bad news later this year if risks materialize.

[Akee]

Here is an excellent analysis of Remedy’s new CEO selection. Highly recommended to watch/listen to this 15-minute video, even though the beginning is a bit provocative.

Remedy Is Fighting For Its Life

They also cover Epyllion’s latest analysis, which I summarized in the gaming industry news thread.

Regarding Remedy, it is essential that growth in Remedy’s main market (EU/US) is practically flat, and market growth in the gaming industry comes largely from China. If you are not present and successful in China, you must sell 1.6x in the flat market to keep up with market growth.

@Akee

Where does that growth come from then:

• From China. And in a way that is difficult for non-Chinese players to succeed.
  • China accounts for 20% of global content spend, but 38% of content spend growth. If you want to grow at the market rate, your game must achieve equivalent distribution in China, or you need to sell 1.6x the volume outside of China. On top of this, 84% of Chinese spend goes to games developed in China. Of the remaining 16% left for foreign developers, local distributors and importers take the lion’s share.
  • To top it all off, Chinese gaming firms capture a quarter of the industry growth occurring outside of China.

[Sijoittaja-alokas]

@Pia_Maljanen and @Atte_Riikola discussed Remedy regarding Q4

Remedy’s investment story is entering a pivotal year, as the company is about to release what is arguably its most important game so far: Control Resonant. For the value creation of Remedy’s share, it is essential to succeed with the release. Analyst Atte Riikola summarizes.

Remedy Q4’25: The stakes are high - Inderes

This video can also be found on the Inderes Nordic channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrl8Srz0eEQgdLhTvKzS85g

[Umpi]

Insomniacin Wolverine-peli sai julkaisupäivän

The PlayStation 5 exclusive Marvel’s Wolverine, developed by Insomniac Games, has received a release date. The action-adventure starring the popular comic book hero will be released on September 15th.

September is now booked. Remedy should ideally act by early August at the latest.

[Spwni]

I can’t help but put on my speculation hat regarding at least Alan Wake Remastered finally making its way to Steam. A fairly comprehensive PC update was released for the game today. I don’t think there have been any for about three years?

Alan Wake Remastered PC update notes (1.33) — Alan Wake

What makes this peculiar is that AWR was, I believe, a remaster done by a subcontracting firm, but I have a gut feeling that these are updates made by an in-house team. Still, Epic is still the publisher, and one would imagine they wouldn’t have much interest in putting resources into AWR support just for the sake of the Luna deal.

Of course, this could be part of Remedy’s own “wanting to take care of the back catalog” culture and there happened to be developers available to do it. But since these updates really haven’t been seen in ages, it was hard not to take this as some kind of signal.

[Akee]

@Umpi

September is now booked. Remedy should ideally act by early August at the latest.

Interesting.

A few-second release date reveal for Wolverine 2 weeks after Sony’s own State of Play as a PS5 exclusive release seems quite… random? Either they are outrageously confident or in deep trouble up to their hairlines. The latter wouldn’t be surprising, as the game was announced back in 2021 and the creative leadership seems to have changed at some point.

It wouldn’t hurt Resonant at all if Wolverine flopped, although usually one has to hope for the best for Sony’s single-player games and especially Insomniac so that Sony understands to keep making and releasing single-player games too.

@Spwni

Epic is still the publisher, and one could somehow imagine there isn’t much interest in putting resources into AWR support based just on the Luna deal.

Of course, this could be part of Remedy’s own “we want to take care of the old catalog” culture and there’s been staff available to do it. But since these updates haven’t been seen in a while, it was hard not to take this as some kind of signal.

Agreed. I thought the earlier “Alan Wake Origins” name change was quite a far-fetched indication that the newer AW games were coming to Steam. Updating AWR only now at the end of February is indeed strange, given that the game was, as I understand it, “Free with Amazon Prime/Luna” already in early January.

Other chatter and speculation

Control Resonant has continued its nice growth in wishlist rankings. It’s currently 56th on Steam wishlists, even though the release date isn’t even known. For example, I/O Interactive’s 007: First Light, coming out in May, is at 43. However, there hasn’t been any very dramatic explosion on Gamalytic after the gameplay reveal trailer; it rose about 5% from 600k → 630k. Still, wishlist activity has dropped quite low, so another trailer or more marketing is definitely needed soon.

By the way, the new CEO starts next week. Hopefully, they can get right to coaching the publishing team and use their Asian network partners to support the launch of Control Resonant.

As a final piece of speculation, I’ve been wondering when on earth the game will start pre-orders. Sony just had a SoP, and Wolverine’s release date was dropped randomly, so nothing new is likely coming from Sony before May-June. Maybe at most some Saros deep dive from Sony, if Housemarque is lucky. A Summer Game Fest release date announcement might be a bit tight for marketing pre-orders through July if the release is in August-October—and of course, it’s a bit too close to GTA and Wolverine anyway.

I started wondering if Control Resonant could also be coming to Game Pass?

Considering the company’s history and risk avoidance, taking a risk-free Game Pass deal would make sense. Because if Resonant were a flop on the level of Firebreak, the company would essentially be forced back into subcontracting or under the dictates of publishers for a long time, maybe permanently. From the perspective of main owner Markus Mäki, he probably doesn’t want to put everything on red in roulette after 30 years in the company. I don’t believe they would take such a risk.

If Control flops, the publishing terms from potential partners for Alan Wake 3 would also be very harsh. Regardless of how well or poorly Resonant sells, the company must have some cash support of its own for AW3 funding to improve its own negotiation and financing position.

If roughly €7.5M was received for Firebreak, then Resonant, with double the budget, should get at least €15M. Likely more. Even conservatively, they should get €20-25M from a Game Pass deal. Based on last year’s leak, the biggest AAA games are paid up to $50M.

We already saw with Alan Wake 2, where the original game was an Xbox exclusive at launch, that it’s impossible to sell anything on Xbox other than “forever games” or the very top games of the year.

€25M would roughly correspond to 0.5M copies at an average price of €60 after VAT and distribution shares. It’s hard to imagine reaching that very easily on Xbox, at least in the launch window, no matter how good the game is.

2024 might have already hinted at Game Pass because I really don’t know how a 100% ROI, i.e., €110-120M in game sales after VAT and distribution shares, is achieved with 3-4M LIFETIME (!) copies, especially as the average price of the game drops over time. Atte predicts a break-even at roughly 1.8M copies. Of course, the game can’t maintain the same average price until the end of its lifecycle, but if there were twenty million or so in Game Pass money, it would look at least a bit more realistic.

On the other hand, they fell short of that 3M copy target for Firebreak by about 3M copies, so maybe one shouldn’t give too much weight to Tero’s story slides anyway.

Anyway, the point of this whole post is that if Xbox organizes its own Partner Preview event in March, that might be the last hope for a Q2 release date. Previously, I thought the event would be too small for Resonant, but the situation changes if the game is available as a Game Pass Ultimate Day 1 title. In that case, dropping the release date in the same event would make sense.

On the other hand, an Xbox Partner Preview has only been held in March once before, on March 6, 2024. Otherwise, the Partner Preview has been held annually in October. On the flip side, even though Sony is majorly bungling their PR with Bluepoint, Xbox is superior in the competition for negative PR, now that Phil Spencer was kicked out and an AI exec was brought in to lead. To clean up the mess from this bungling, diverting players’ attention elsewhere with a Partner Preview could be a pretty low-risk, high-reward move if they show a bit more of Crimson Desert and Marathon, and why not Subnautica 2, which is also supposed to come out this year.

Personally, I’d at least take the easy wins from Xbox while they’re available. The next couple of weeks should show whether a late Q2 release is realistic, or if it moves to Q3.

[Hasty]

One potential venue for a release date trailer would be the Future Games Show on March 12th, where Firebreak was also showcased last year. If we don’t hear anything then, it’ll likely be pushed to the summer, and by then it’ll be almost certain that the game won’t be out until later in the fall.

I was also surprised by that AW Remastered update, considering it probably sells about one copy a day on Epic, which makes you wonder if it’s worth investing much into it. It inevitably brings a Steam release to mind, but we’ll see…

[amoult]

@Hasty

I was also wondering about that AW remastered update, given that it probably sells about 1 copy per day via Epic, whether it’s worth investing much in. So a Steam release inevitably came to mind, but let’s see…

I would guess the update is related to the fact that AW2 and AWR just became available on Amazon Luna (a GeForce Now-style cloud service where the game runs on a server and the image is streamed to the TV, for example, via an Amazon Fire TV stick). So it would just be some minor fine-tuning and tech updates with that platform in mind.

[Henkka]

In-depth analysis of Control Resonant. They got to see more of the game last week at an “Extended Preview” event. This likely means more of the game has been shared with the gaming media, so one could imagine we’ll hear more about Resonant soon in the form of a trailer. Perhaps a release date will be pushed out then as well.

Edit:

Control Resonant First-Look Preview – This Is No Soulslike. It’s Faster

Also a preview out from IGN.

From what I’ve seen so far, it looks very good.

[Akee]

So the preview dropped at the exact same time as the previews for Crimson Desert, which is one of the most anticipated games of the year. And the Crimson Desert preview embargos have been public knowledge.

I also don’t quite understand why Remedy wants to repeatedly highlight this “not-soulslike” thing in their communication? Even in the comments, it shifts the discussion toward whether it is or isn’t a soulslike, and simply bringing the matter up might alienate Souls fans from the game. Unbelievable.

They should just show the game and let players form their own opinions.

The publishing team certainly doesn’t get any points from me. Fortunately, the gameplay looks much better and faster than in the gameplay reveal.

It strongly smells like a Q3 release based on IGN’s coverage.