Remedy Entertainment has stated that Control 2 will be an “action RPG,” but before you operate telekinesis to throw things at a wall, they actually define the first game as an “action-focused adventure RPG.” I guess that’s a technobabble way of saying “Metroidvania” without bringing up intergalactic bounty hunters and vampire hunters.
The problem is that as soon as this is reduced to an “action RPG”, e.g BlueSky postin fact, it conjures up a completely different mental image filled with Witchers and Viking assassins, with numbers popping out of enemies as you fight them. Strictly speaking, there’s an RPG character progression system where you gain skills and then enhance them, and there’s definitely action and an adventure kind of thing, but those specific terms are so broad now that they don’t matter.
The thing is that “action RPG” is only used as a shorthand when filling out the table. Here’s a slide where CFO Santtu Kallionpää describes Control 2 as being in the “action RPG genre” – here in the 57th minute.
Later, when describing the main franchises, they are shown as:
The most crucial thing to know is that Control 2 will be like Control. It’s less crucial to define what Control is, but if I had to, I’d call it a third-person shooter Metroidvania.
Delivering a wide-ranging presentation on Capital Markets Day, Remedy provided an update on its overarching business, the performance of its games, the studio’s ongoing ethos, and a compact insight into its future plans.
Alan Wake 2, for example, has now sold 1.8 million copies, while Control has already surpassed 4.5 million (though thanks to PS Plus, Game Pass and other promotions, there are already 19 million players. Both a key pillar of Remedy’s interconnected universe and together with FBC Firebreak they provide three contrasting but complementary genres.
As we’ve already mentioned, Control is a Metroidvania that can technically be called an action-adventure RPG. Additionally, we have Alan Wake as a survival horror game – this has changed a bit from the original game to Alan Wake 2, but the descriptor is now perfect and makes sense. Finally, there’s FBC Firebreak, which “co-op session shooter” describes almost perfectly.
Here are three paths of Remedy’s self-publishing efforts, all using their own Northlight engine, which they see as a real strength and differentiator over the adoption of Unreal. The final topic that isn’t really discussed is the Max Payne remake project, which is being kept separate as it will be published by Rockstar.
It was also announced that Control will receive a free update early next year that will unlock previously released content for all players, with Control Ultimate Edition coming to Mac on February 12, 2025.
Source: Remedy
