Remedy Entertainment is a Video Game developing company based in Espoo, Finland. Remedy was founded in 1995 by demoscene members from groups such as Future Crew. The year after Remedy released its first game Death Rally, a top-down perspective racing shooter published by Apogee and distributed by GT Interactive Software. In 2001, Remedy released its second game Max Payne. The game is best known for its film noir influences and popularizing bullet time in video games. Remedy sold all the rights to Max Payne in 2002 to Take-Two Interactive for US$10 million and 969 932 shares of stock. The following year, a sequel to the franchise developed by Remedy and Rockstar Games was released. This would be Remedy's last Max Payne game, as Rockstar continued developing the franchise on its own.
Remedy would later work on Quantum Break, which was announced during the Xbox One event on 21 May 2013. The game was released on April 5, 2016. During the development of Quantum Break, the CEO of Remedy, Matias Myllyrinne, and Oskari Häkkinen, the head of franchise development, departed from the company. Remedy later announced the formation of a new team and that they're working on two projects. The first being a partnership with Smilegate on CrossFire 2. The second being published by 505 Games, which revealed at E3 2018 to be Control.
Games developed:
- Death Rally (1996) (PC)
- Death Rally (2011) (Android, iPhone/iPod, PC)
- Max Payne (2001) (PC, Xbox, PS2, GBA, Android, iOS)
- Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003)
- Alan Wake (2010) (PC, Xbox 360)
- Alan Wake: The Signal (DLC)
- Alan Wake: The Writer (DLC)
- Alan Wake's American Nightmare (2012) (PC, Xbox 360)
- Quantum Break (2016) (PC, Xbox One)
- Control (2019) (PC, Xbox One, PS4)
- Control: The Foundation (DLC)
- Control: AWE (DLC)
- Alan Wake Remastered (2021)
- Crossfire X (single player campaign) (2022)
Tropes used in Remedy games:
- Creator Cameo: Sam Lake, Creative Director and writer at Remedy, shows up in roles of varying importance in several of their projects:
- Max Payne: Most famously, he appears as the face for Max himself in the first game, though he was replaced for the second and third games.
- Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: He is the villainous mother of the male protagonist of Show Within a Show Lords and Ladies.
- Max Payne 3: In a Mythology Gag, an artistic rendering of Max Payne (now played by James McCaffrey) still has Lake's face.
- Alan Wake: He appears As Himself on an optional broadcast of The Harry Garrett Show, giving his famous Max Payne scowl.
- Quantum Break: He can be seen playing an important character in a trailer for an Alan Wake-written movie. He also plays a member of the band My Bleeding Clock, as seen by a poster Jack owned in his youth.
- Max Payne: Most famously, he appears as the face for Max himself in the first game, though he was replaced for the second and third games.
- Creator Thumbprint: All of their original full-length games (beside Death Rally) have been third-person shooters with Mind Screwy plots based around a semi-localized breakdown of reality where the protagonist wears a dark jacket (usually leather), and has some kind of powers which involves time. Control generally follows most of that, barring the time powers.
- Also, Full Motion Video cutscenes and segments, with Alan Wake relegating them to in-game TV screens, American Nightmare and Control adding full live-action cutscenes, and Quantum Break having a full-length companion drama series.
- Doppelgänger:
- Alan Wake has Mr Scratch, and it is implied he himself is one for Thomas Zane
- Jesse Faden has the Hiss corrupted esseJ
- Ironically, Jack Joyce does not have one, despite being the only protagonist portrayed by an actor who has an identical twin.
- Icy Blue Eyes: So far, all of their protagonists (Max Payne in his original appearance, Alan Wake, Jack Joyce and Jesse Faden) share this trait.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Ever since Alan Wake, the majority of Remedy characters have been directly modeled after their actors, most likely to make Medium Blending easier.
- Production Posse: Throughout the years and across Remedy's numerous franchises, a group of actors now make regular appearances in most of the Remedy games, including:
- James McCaffrey is the voice of Max Payne as well as his Self-Parody Alex Casey and poet Thomas Zane in Alan Wake. He also voices Zachariah Trench in Control.
- Matthew Porretta is the voice of Alan Wake in all of Wake's appearances, as well as Mr. Scratch in Alan Wake's American Nightmare, and Dr. Casper Darling in Control.
- Ilkka Villi is the Motion Capture for Alan Wake in all of his appearances, as well as the Mocap for both Mr. Scratch in Alan Wake's American Nightmare and Tom Zane in Control.
- Poets of the Fall, who regularly make music for Remedy games, have played both Fake Band Old Gods of Asgard, and/or as themselves in Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, and Control.
- Courtney Hope plays a supporting role as time-traveler Beth Wilder in Quantum Break and lead role as Director Jesse Faden in Control.
- Sean Durrie plays Conspiracy Theorist cab driver Nick Marsters in Quantum Break, and Jesse's estranged brother Dylan Faden in Control.
- Working Title: A few of their productions have used working titles early in development.
