Throughout 2021, Remedy Entertainment, developer of such games as Control and Alan Wake, has teased one of its upcoming projects, a free-to-play live-service co-op shooter codenamed Vanguard. The company just reached a major milestone for this title, as it now has a partner to help make it a reality.
Remedy is cooking up quite a few projects currently. There’s the military first-person shooter CrossfireX which it has been co-developing with Smilegate Entertainment, as well as the long-awaited Alan Wake 2, which was finally confirmed at The Game Awards earlier this month, to name the ones that have been revealed. Now, the company is teaming up with one of its most prominent shareholders, Tencent, for Vanguard, thanks to a global development, license, and distribution agreement that the two have signed.
According to the details of the announcement, Remedy will handle development and publishing of the game in most regions, while Tencent will take care of locationzation and publishing in select Asian markets. Both companies will co-finance the development and handle the costs of maintaining the game in their respective regions, and once development costs have been recouped, both will share a portion of their revenue with one another.
As for the game itself, Vanguard is being developed in the Unreal Engine for both PC and consoles, with Remedy also giving Tencent the rights to develop and release a mobile version worldwide. However, the game is still in a “proof-of-concept phase,” so it will likely be a few years before it’s ready to be released. This is also likely due to the implied scale of the project, as Remedy stated that the development budget for Vanguard up to its first year of live service will be in the typical range for the company’s AAA titles.
The partnership announcement focused mainly on the business side of Vanguard’s development, but Remedy did tease what people can expect from it, promising that its co-op PvE gameplay will offer an “immersive multiplayer experience” bolstered by the company’s “narrative expertise.” While most popular live-service games like Overwatch, Fortnite, and Apex Legends tend to focus on PvP action, Remedy is hopeful it can utilize its strengths to ensure its first live-service title can achieve similar success in the PvE space.
Fans of Remedy have plenty to look forward to for the foreseeable future. After two years without any brand new titles, the company is currently slated to release something new annually for the next two years, starting with CrossfireX on February 16, 2022, and followed by Alan Wake 2 sometime in 2023. This should go a long way towards making the wait for Vanguard, as well as more concrete details about it, more bearable.
Vanguard is currently in development for PC and consoles.
Source: Remedy Entertainment