The future of Remedy Entertainment is looking extremely bright. With the recently revealed Alan Wake 2 and rumors of multiple Control projects, fans of the studio will have a lot to play over the next several years. Remedy has always seen success with its past titles, but the overwhelmingly positive reception to Control shoved the studio into the mainstream spotlight once more and has fans sitting on the edges of their seats as they wait for new information about what's next for both Alan Wake and Jesse Fayden.
While Control has a countless list of merits, from its mind-bending narrative to its striking art design, one aspect of the game that was universally criticized was its poor technical optimization. The game doesn't run very well on the last generation of consoles, the only consoles available when it released in 2019, resulting in frequent frame rate drops and crashes. Control was able to stand out despite its major technical issues, however, thanks to its high quality in virtually every other area. Still, unless Remedy is able to better optimize Alan Wake 2 and the rest of its Control content, then it might not see the success that it's hoping for down the line.
Remedy Entertainment's Ambitious Projects
It's no secret that Remedy likes to push the boundaries of gaming with each of its releases. Each title that the studio has made stands out from the rest of the industry, from the then-groundbreaking bullet-time mechanics of Max Payne to the flashlight-centric mechanics of Alan Wake, it's always a safe bet that Remedy is planning on doing something unique for each of its titles. With Control, the studio went above and beyond with its destruction physics, but that, unfortunately, resulted in the game having numerous technical issues on last-generation consoles.
Now, console players are able to experience Control in a much smoother fashion thanks to the enhanced processing power of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and S, but fans shouldn't have to rely on purchasing a new system in order to enjoy Remedy's games how they're intended to perform. If Alan Wake 2 and the rest of Remedy's Control projects are going to have similarly ambitious gameplay, the studio is going to need to rethink its approach to designing for the currently available hardware.
Luckily, Control runs fine enough on both the graphics and framerate settings on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a few hitches here and there in the graphics mode, so there's hope that Remedy's next projects will be just fine on the new consoles. Quantum Break didn't have nearly as many issues as Control did on the PS4 and Xbox One, so it's still possible that Remedy could continue designing outside of its limitations.
Hopefully, Remedy is able to find a nice balance between the mechanics it wants to implement and the limitations of the hardware it's designing for. This could, unfortunately, result in something of a compromised vision for the studio when it comes to its next releases. Still, creating a consistent experience that players can enjoy regardless of the hardware they're running the game on is extremely important if the studio wants fans to return for subsequent entries. The bar has been set high for Remedy in terms of what's possible in its games, but if it continues to fall short when it comes to the stability of its titles, it could see a fall from grace in the eyes of fans who were willing to forgive the studio for Control's poor optimization.
Alan Wake 2 is in development.