Finnish game development studio Remedy Entertainment announced today that its upcoming free-to-play cooperative PvE shooter codenamed Vanguard (Remedy’s first foray in the multiplayer market) will be co-financed by Tencent as detailed in a new global development, license, and distribution agreement. Tencent owns a minority stake of 3.8% in the company, acquired in May 2021.
The game, which is said to marry Remedy’s renowned narrative expertise with action gameplay with the goal to create an immersive multiplayer experience, will be self-published by the Finnish studio worldwide with the exception of select Asian markets. In those countries, Tencent will take over localization and publishing duties.
Vanguard is still in the proof-of-concept phase, according to the press release, so don’t expect to play it any time soon. The development budget up to the end of the first year of live operations is said to be within the usual range of a triple-A Remedy title. Tencent will co-finance development with Remedy; both parties will be responsible for their own publishing and game operating costs in their respective territories while sharing a portion of revenue to the other party after the recoupment of the development costs.
Moreover, Remedy licensed global rights to develop and publish a mobile version of Vanguard. In this case, the costs of development and publishing will be entirely Tencent’s, while the parties agreed to a separate revenue sharing scheme for Vanguard mobile.
Tero Virtala, CEO of Remedy Entertainment, said:
Vanguard marks Remedy’s first entry into Games-as-a-Service business model, executed by our top tier team of free-to-play experts. We are building something new and exciting for co-operative multiplayer space, on top of Remedy’s strengths. Expanding our capabilities to take on publishing responsibilities is the next step in the development of our company. We are excited for this long-term partnership with Tencent and with confidence can say that it is an excellent fit in supporting Vanguard’s ambitious plans. Vanguard is a global opportunity, and Tencent can support Remedy internationally, and lead the operations in Asia and the mobile markets.
We don’t know much about Vanguard, other than a few high-concept statements made a while ago. Virtala himself said Remedy is trying to solve the ever-present content treadmill issue.
In co-op games, the challenge was often the content treadmill. In order to create long-lasting experiences, the developer cannot rely solely on handcrafting and making every single level and mission unique because that’s not typically a path that’s sustainable. We saw that there are unsolved questions about how a long-lasting, service-based co-op game could be made. If we can solve those problems, if we can bring the way we tell stories via the world and exploration, those could be elements we can utilise better in co-op (PvE) than PvP.
As a reminder, Remedy recently announced Alan Wake 2 for a 2023 release. Their work on the single player campaigns of CrossfireX is also about to debut alongside the rest of that game, which is due for release on February 10th, 2022 for Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X.
