Developer Remedy Entertainment has today announced the cancellation of 'Codename Kestrel', a co-op multiplayer game first announced back in 2021 under the name 'Vanguard'.
Despite multiple iterations of the title, and years in early development, the Finnish team has now canned the project in favour of working on its existing series. At the moment, the developer has Alan Wake 2 DLC, a Control spin-off, Control 2 and Max Payne 1+2 Remake in the works.
Here's what Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala had to say on this latest development:
"Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage. Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits. We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations. This is yet another means to ensure that our game projects continue advancing well.
I want to thank our Kestrel development team. Though we decided to discontinue the project for wider Remedy benefits, our team has done good work and provided us with valuable learnings. I also want to thank Tencent for their partnership so far. They have been very professional and supportive,"
In terms of the rest of Remedy's pipeline, things sound like they're going pretty well at the moment. The Max Payne remakes are now entering full production, mo-cap sessions are wrapping up on Alan Wake 2, and the team is full steam ahead on all-things Control after recently purchasing the rights to the franchise from publisher 505 Games.
Once Alan Wake 2's DLC season is complete, it sounds like that Control multiplayer spin-off is next in line, before the team eventually moves onto Max Payne 1+2 Remake and Control 2.