History of Remedy Entertainment

Hi, Gabrielle Lambert with you today as part of the history of the game industry, the project in which I talk about the studios that left the mark in the history of Gamera, we will talk about the famous fins from Remedy. These people gave us some wonderful works, which will be discussed further in the text. And for lovers to contemplate and listen at the end, a video version in two parts is attached. Let’s go.

The origins
Once upon a time, the final Suvahoku was visited by the obsessive thought of creating a game development team. The samuli had enough skills in programming, and depending on how the market of interactive entertainment develops the team, calling the team of friends. So on August 18, 1995, Remedy Entertainment was formed in Finland.

The first swallow is Death Rally – Autoarchade with a view of. Then this subspecies of the genre was very popular, and it was very important for beginners to enter the trend. And with such a material it was easier and more profitable to do. However, the developers did not hack and created their debut project with trepidation and attention. So much so that one of the founders of Petri Yarvilechto thought about the plot and Beckgrad to the game, but since he himself did not own the proper skills in artistic spelling, Petri decided to call a friend of the writer. It turned out to be a thin student of the Theater Academy of Finland himself, now known under the pseudonym Sam Lake.

Death Rally

The game reached the shelves on September 6, 1996 and was sold magnificent for the debut with a circulation of 90 thousand. copies. Of course, it meant a good filling of the game. It was not just a stupid arcade with cars, but a world in which everything was decided by survival races. There were cars, which were referring to the real prototypes of sportsmen, and riders, caricatures for famous characters and people. The variety of tracks also goes into plus the game, like the main mechanics – convenient and simple. The bonus system for the fulfillment of certain conditions only pushes to an even more dynamic gameplay, and from that to a long presence in the game. The totality of all these elements was made by Death Rally of one of the best representatives of this suck, unless the best.

Three -dimensional line
The first victory at the Front of Gamestroy did not intoxicated the young team, but only made it clear that they could speak in a more serious game field. To begin with, it was important to get acquainted with the advanced technologies of three -dimensional graphics, which were safely included. Therefore, Remedy in the summer of 97 contacted VNU Buisness Publications, who asked the developers to create a three -dimensional benchmark. Remedy managed to call their product “Final Reality”. Benchmark has become very popular, from that the studio has become more noticeable in the circles of games developers. In the wake of success in the design of the benchmark, the studio decided to create a separate team that will engage in subsequent installations in this field. The new company took the name Futuremark.

The scandal arose with success. The initiator was Lucas Arts, which threatened the court due to the great similarity of their logo from the Remedy logo. The finns did not climb into the wolf and changed their logo to another.

The canceled project
Having mastered the 3D design, the studio took up the development of the game GUNKAN, which later changed the name to Aggression’s Utopos. But this option had to be changed, since such a game already existed. As a result, the new project became known as “Guntech”. According to the plot layout of the concept, it is clear that history would happen either in Moscow or Shanghai, after the explosion of the bomb with the familiar name of the Valkyrie. As a result of the disaster, people did not so much die as they were infected and turned into a zombie.
And as it is clear from the concept, it would be a shooter in which, according to the rumors of the main character, Alex Casey’s name. And Remedy immediately took up the project quite thoroughly, but some circumstances all the same forced to stop developing Guntech. At the time of cancellation, 19 soundtracks were already written and artistic work was done to search for images.

Having slightly lost its enthusiasm, Remedy began to think to make just a continuation of Death Rally, a shooter in isometry, or even a cosmic simulator. The situation was saved by the company’s friends and part -time publishers from 3D Realms, for a moment the creators of Duke Nuukem. The head of the cattle publishing house Miller gave one condition for the game to be three -dimensional and similar to the mechanics of games about Lara Croft.

Dark justice of Max
This impetus has turned https://pistolo-casino.co.uk into work on a project with a draft name “Dark Justice”, or dark justice. In the concept, it was a deep, psychological story about a police officer who began to perform justice on his own. After approval, the concept began to be finalized, and the name changed several times. For a long time, the game was preparing with the name “Max Heat”, which in essence is translated as “maximum heat”. However, at that time, the surname worthy of Max was not invented. But soon, the idea came to Ossi Tourpenin to designate the hero as “Payne”, which means “pain”, and it is very much fed up with the plot. On that and decided.
Max Payne – a project with a difficult fate. The game trailer shown in the 97th on E3 was a very raw demonstration of a raw idea. However, there was a good engine and rather dynamic shootings, which bribed. In 1998, the concept changed, cartoon textures were replaced by realistic, the mood of the game also changed, the picture became even more technological.
Throughout this time, the plot and basic elements of gameplay were worked out. Sam Lake decided to abandon the long -leafed Catcetzen on the engine, since the story was still swimming, and any change in the plot could have been destroyed by all the efforts of the animators. Therefore, an alternative was proposed in the form of processed photographs, ala noir comic. For example, Sam brought several of his photographs for clarity. After some time, Sam noticed that his colleagues seriously used his face as Max’s face. So the fate of Sam was decided as a frontman of the studio.
After the second show of the game, the developers went to New York to shoot the darkest corners of this criminal city, for example and use their locations in the design of their locations. Upon arrival, the photographs were watched, and the developers decided not only to use the photo, but to make a large apple with the center in the narrative of the game.

The gameplay was created as asked, with an eye on Tomb Rider. I just didn’t want to copy it at all. When creating mechanics, developers were inspired by various cinema, including John Wu works, with his manner of serving action and spectacular rapper. It was rapid and jumping with shooting that became the basis of gameplay. And this was invented before the premiere of the “matrix”, contrary to many conversations. And by the way about the film Vachovsky, after its release, the developers were not confused and added a lot of references to the film, up to several scenes.
Every year, new trailers showed an improved picture and a more dynamic shooter mechanics. The latter even demonstrated the true face of the upcoming game, adding in drama and entertainment. The developers finished the game without haste, but they already understood that you could not pull. “Max Payne” appears on the shelves on July 23, 2001 and produces a splash.

I will not talk about the plot and story. Those who played and know what and how, how, and who has never been lucky to turn this masterpiece, I don’t even know how you were here. If briefly, this is a drama about a policeman who lost his family and decided to avenge the death of loved ones at all costs. Naturally, not everything is so simple. Max is painful and he goes through dark nookswoods to drown out this pain.
The revolutionary mechanics of shootout, which may have previously met, but in the best traditions of Remedy, will help in this matter. Spectacular slow, shooting with two hands, jumping from around the corner, all this immediately began to associate with Max Pyon. And this mechanic was wrapped in a rather beautiful wrapper created according to all the latest canons of Gamera. Beautiful, interesting, dynamic, intriguing – this is all about the new game Remedy, which after the release of Max woke up famous throughout the world, and Sam Lake’s face became more than recognizable.

Love and Noir
The first hints of the development of the sequel appeared when the publisher Take Two Interactive announced the acquisition of rights to the Max Payne trademark. However, Remedy was assigned to make a sequel anyway when 3d Realms remained out of work. The new publisher did not put any framework, the developers could think freely and were pretty well funded. And so work began on “Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne”.
Sam Lake sat down again for writing the script. This time he did not need to come up with the background, because more attention was paid to the characters, their interaction and development. So the idea of ​​a noar love story was born. Moreover, such a decision was so captured by a watering can that in the end the plot turned out 3 times more than in the first part.
On the technical side everything was also smooth. The same MaxFX engine modified to the second version was used. Personal animation, quality of models and environment, textures and a lot of things were subjected to improvement. The new Havok physical engine was introduced, which allowed to naturalize the behavior of weapons, grenades and Molotov cocktails, and also gave mobility to various objects: boxes, boxes and bodies of opponents.
This time, the actor was invited to the role of Payne, who gave the hero a new face due to the plot of a banal aging. In addition, actors of varying degrees of weight in the acting were invited to other roles. Also, during the development of the second part of Max, Sam Lake became friends with the Finnish grip Poets of Fall, which he gave his verse, asking him to remake him into the song. So the main topic of the game “Late Goodbye” was born.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

The exit of the game in October 2003 turned out to be loud and enchanting. Critics praised the game for its deep atmosphere, improved and many spectacular action, for history and music. Until now, many put a sequel to Max Payne as an example in terms of game design, storoteling and style. Even praised the ports of this game on Xbox and PS2, made a little worse, but remaining at the level.
You can tell a lot about the game, but this is not grateful as in cases with the first part. A monumental work under the name “Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne” must be perceived by personally and without intermediaries. You can say a little about the mechanics that became more dynamic due to the physical engine, and the “Bullet Time” mode has acquired a couple of conventions. Of these, the extension of a slowdown in the murder of more opponents and rapids with a jump in the direction that does not spend the scale.
The exit of the sequel perfectly enriched Remedy, both in material terms and in terms of respect from other developers and players. And it would seem further only better and louder, but the developers went on the radio monitoring for two years. During this time, the concept of a new work was being prepared.

The story of the writer
It is far from a secret that while writing a new scenario, Sam Lake was inspired by a huge number of different films and books in the genres of a psychological thriller and horror. Well, firstly, the very image of the protagonist as a writer is obviously taken from Setter Kane – a writer shown in the film “In the mouth of madness”, and the plot itself resembles the plot of the novel “A bag of bones”. But the most obvious thing is that the style, presentation and pace are exactly like that of Stephen King, which Wake himself mentions more than once in the course of the game. The main aspect in the plot was all the same that are present in most thrillers. Constant tension, sappress, interesting idea and feeling of fear. But we’ll talk about the plot later.
The project was announced to E3 in 2005 for Xbox360 and PC. According to the first information, it was known that this is a thriller, that it would be very technological and that an interesting action system will be used. After four years of silence, Remedy showed the game again, but already gamepals. It also became known that the development of the PC version was suspended. The rest of the time up to the release on the Xbox 360, the studio polished its brainchild fixing mistakes and testing.
It is interesting that the game was planned with the open world, as in GTA or Silent Hill, but when trying to organically link such a mechanics with the plot, it was decided to abandon this idea. From the interesting one, to create images of enemies more frightening, the concept arts were doused with water, and only then they painted them. To model a realistic environment, the studio employees traveled to the states of Men and Washington, the places where most of the events take place with King and others.

The console version was released in May 2010, and after that the studio continued to work on a PC version and by spring 2012 it rolled out the publication for personal computers for Windows.
To begin with, I determine that the game Remedy always determines the close interweaving of mechanics and history with the outside world. A new game was no exception. First of all, of course, the plot, dialogs and internal monologues of the protagonist, and then gameplay, is dominated by here, but one to the other is very well attached and everything interacts as in the watch.
So the plot. The famous writer Alan Wike has a creative crisis and for two years he has not been able to write not lines. In search of inspiration and simple rest, he and his wife Alice come to a quiet town on the shores of Lake Koldron-Bright Folls. Alice tells Alan to pick up the keys to their rented house from the owner of the cafe, but instead of him the keys are conveyed by a strange woman and says how to go to the house, right on the lake island.
The couple is populated, but Alice has a terrible fear of darkness and there are circumstances so that Alan is far from the house when the light is chopped off. Wike runs to the house, knowing about the fear of his wife, but only discovers her absence and broken railing. Alan jumps into the water hoping to save her, but in the end comes to his senses, a week after the incident. Thus begins the journey of the writer through the story he created.
An interesting element is the manuscripts scattered by levels written by Alan himself. Events in the manuscript will soon begin to come true, any event in the game is subjectly written. It turns out that the darkness was abducted by Alice so that, thanks to his works, the writer could help her to rebel over the world. But to understand this, you still need to come by the plot. And then, darkness does not sit back and in every possible way tries to stop Alan.
At such moments, the game opens up to the player a local special action mechanics. Firstly, most of the game we wander along the dark forests and mountain paths, and because the opponents are a dark entity resembling smoke from Lost, the player is forced to seek salvation from light sources. And therefore, to an advantage with weapons, from which a revolver, several shotgun and rifles to choose from, Alan needs to carry one of several types of flashlights, fake -ups and light -school grenades.
But actually the mechanics of the extermination of the dark essence and the people obsessed with it look as follows. Before you touch the enemies with bullets, you must first illuminate them with the light of a flashlight, a light rocket and other, and only then shoot. This aspect of mechanics greatly increases the atmosphere and saturation of each meeting with darkness. Run frantically and seek light, dodging attacks, the player from the first minutes perceives himself as in a horror film.
Enemies sometimes appear unexpectedly, but closer to the end you understand when they can appear approximately. And these and other events are very clear and atmosphered by the musical accompaniment and the soundtrack as a whole. The music is very correct and logically placed. It is as if she was taken from such films and series, and Finnish flavor of musicians from Poets of Fall makes itself felt.
Of course, it is worthwhile to mention the fashionable, at that time, serial system. Episodes are six and most of them end with cliphhengeers and begin with the phrase “in previous episodes Alan Wake”. This is very convenient for translucent passage, if only because the episodes are long, and at a high level of complexity, passing can be delayed for a long time.
The only thing that confused the final consumer a little was a graphic performance. The game was developed for a long time and the engine managed to become obsolete morally. Of course, perception was very influenced by darkness, which perfectly hid the graphic disadvantages, and the art design, where each element was made with the soul and was in its place to add points. However, Remedy was still late in this aspect.
In all aspects and even in the decoration, Alan Wake turned out to be a very complex spectacular and very exciting game. Mechanics, tied in the world and darkness, was vividly correlated with an excellent plot, which is quite interesting to follow, and he himself is ready to stand on a par with the cult works of Stephen King. And even if the plot begins to seem predictable, then the game itself achieves this, thereby forcing itself to associate with the main character.

Additive
After the success of Alan Wash, the development of additions to the game followed. The first episode “Signal”, continuing the main storyline. Gameplay in this episode is the same, but much more complicated. Opponents have become more aggressive and go to Alan in more quantities than before. But events look denser and more saturated. Locations are constantly changing, which is an indisputable plus. But the most important thing is the continuation of the story, although it would seem to continue nothing more, because the ending for the thriller was just perfect.
In the second episode called the writer, Alan falls into real surrealism. The purpose of the chapter is to get to the lighthouse. And the path will go through the lake through the air through the appeared blocks and buildings, leading to the final battle. As a result, the whirlwind wakes himself up from delirium. Realizing that the path from imprisonment needs to come up with a more elegant Alan sits down to write a new book called “Return”
A distinctive feature of these episodes in terms of gameplay should be called words in the air that you need to shine, and then they turn to the object that the word characterized. It can help both and annoy. In the second part, she will have to use quite often. And also often observe the existing surrealism of the environment.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

However, more expected with the release of the next additive to the game. Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is not so much an addition as a separate branch from the first part, albeit the continuing plot of the game. It turned out on February 22, 2012 on Xbox 360, and after in May on PC. The addition had a number of differences from the original, and much cardinal. Two years have passed since the last additional episode and Alan has not yet been able to leave the dark monastery. Now he has a new enemy and this is himself, but only covered by a dark essence.
The hero falls into Arizona in the fictional town of Knight Springs, in order to rewrite reality in such a way as to destroy the evil double. For this there are a number of tasks for performing. It is necessary to destroy the oil tower – this time to get stellar data in the observatory, and then activate the cinema in the open air. The trick is that with the last action, everything goes not so smoothly and Alan will again and again fall into the beginning of the story.
The main change is open locations for research, although not so extensive. We are free to look for supplies, weapons and pages of a book that can be exchanged for special weapons in suitcases. And since the arsenal increased this enterprise makes sense. In addition, this is a flashlight in ordinary light now does not at all inflict any damage to enemies. Now you must definitely aim so that the enemy is weakened. Fortunately, the flashlight is now recharging much faster.
Even from changes – this is a more cheerful musical accompaniment, just to match the not such a dark picture, but not very bright. And now adds, and there are quite a lot of them. Cinematographic videos with real actors, but rather an actor, are striking, because in the frame only Alan himself and his double, brilliantly played by the Finnish actor and scriptwriter Ilcca Willy. The videos appear not only between the gameplay, but also on TV screens.
And all these innovations work very well, and even constantly the undertaking is not at first annoying. The developers tried to make them a little different. And although it took about 4 hours to pass, you can safely add 3 more, because in addition to the plot there is endurance competitions, or arena. The player is landing and tries to survive until dawn. Each time and card, the game becomes more difficult, and you have to think about the strategy in motion.

Triple pain of Max

And in parallel with these people from Rockstar, the development of a third part of Max Payne was carried out, the rights to which were left by Take Two. Sam Lake was invited to work on the plot and characters. According to his assurances, the story will be different, but will retain the features of the original games. As for the technical side of the issue, the game was prepared using the latest technologies available in Rockstar. Gameplay game was conceived as an even more hurricane action with an even more spectacular slush. Actually, after the release, it became clear that everything that they promised to do, and and at a fairly high level of performance.
Between all this case with Alan Wike and Max Payne, a certain Programist Yari Compa contacted Remedy and asked for permission to create a Freeware version of Death Rally. Permission to reprint was given, and this was enough for the port to go out six months later. In connection with the success of this enterprise, several Remedy employees, together with Mountain Sheep, began work on the direct remake of their first game to new standards. Thus, in the interval from 2011 to September 12, the game was re -elevated to many platforms. The remake received an updated three -dimensional graphics, several new characters, musical themes and effects.

Alan Wake 2 and F2P
Also, one cannot help but mention the roller merged into the network with a demonstration of the gameplay continued Alan Wake. As it later became known, the build was developed before the release of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. But nothing of the shown does not exclude the continuation of the franchise.

After all this, as usual, Remedy subsided again for a long time. The first urge was the announcement and release of Free2play Games for iOS – Agent of Storm. It turned out to be an extremely sudden, but logical move. A similar genre of economic strategies for mobile phones is an excellent help in the financial feeding of the next big project.

Time shifts

Which was announced shortly before. The event took place within the framework of the E3 2013, at the Microsoft conference, a beautiful trailer was shown, hinting at manipulations over time and shootout. New facts began to clear up later. For example, for an accurate and close to reality, a researcher from Cern, whose minds are engaged in nuclear research and high -energy physics, was invited to the description of the laws of space. In connection with these research, a new Northlight Engine engine was developed, which will be more than realized.

The authors of the script for the game, in addition to Sam Lake, are a couple of scientific writers. Michael Kauzurinen, a game director previously working on Battlefild 4, was invited for directing. He also directs the series with real actors based on the game, and related to the original plot. Regarding this, one cannot but mention that the famous actors who showed themselves in many famous series were invited to the role both in the series and in the game.
From the shown gameplay rollers, we can conclude on the gameplay account. This is an newly inventive action from a third person, in which this time we can radically affect the course of playing time and use it during shootings. Slow down, stopping, local freezing, all this and much more very soon will let all players in the world be tested. The release is scheduled for April 5, 2016.

Conclusion
And this is the whole story of Remedy today. The finns from the very beginning of their path hold the brand of excellent developers, who can tell a good story and give a unique expirence from gameplay. It remains only to wish them good luck in the future and the achievements of even greater heights in the game construction.

Video versions for lovers to contemplate and listen. Nice viewing: