Remedy Entertainment's CEO Tero Virtala has "mutually agreed" with the company's board of directors to step down from his position "with immediate effect," with the Alan Wake and Max Payne developer now on the lookout for a replacement.
Virtala has held his position as CEO since August 2016, and although he's now stepped down, a news release shared today confirms that he'll "continue at the service of the company during an agreed transition period to support the handover of CEO duties." In addition, as of today, one of Remedy's original founders, Markus Mäki, has been appointed as interim CEO, in a move that'll see him step down from being chairman of the board (with that role now filled by Henri Österlund).
"I want to thank Tero Virtala for his substantial contribution to the management of Remedy since 2016," Mäki writes in a statement. "I personally thank Tero for good cooperation and wish him all the best for the future."
Remedy has a pretty busy upcoming slate, with Control 2 in the works alongside the Max Payne 1 & 2 Remake. The company hasn't said that this leadership change will have any impact on the projects, so we can only assume that everything is going ahead as planned, but both games currently seem pretty far off given that neither even have release windows.
Things haven't been all smooth for Remedy lately, however. It was only a few months ago that Remedy released FBC: Firebreak, a multiplayer co-op shooter that unfortunately launched to mixed reception, with a critic score of 64 on Metacritic. More recently, the company acknowledged the title's "weak sales," lowering its "long-term sales forecast for the game" and also issuing a "profit warning" alongside an adjustment of its 2025 outlook.
At the time, Virtala stated: "Remedy is recognizing a non-cash impairment of capitalized development costs and allocated purchased publishing and distribution rights related to FBC: Firebreak. While we balance future investments to the title, we continue developing and improving the game in line with our updated long-term sales forecast."
Before that, in May last year, another game codenamed Kestrel was canceled in a move which the developer explained "allows Remedy to focus more on the other games in its portfolio," specifically calling out "existing franchises." None of these things were mentioned in the news of Virtala's departure, so they may not be related, but Remedy is certainly in need of a win going forward.
Max Payne's iconic mug came about because of its creator's university TTRPG club, but he got so "self-conscious" after the game's release that he had to change his hairstyle to remain incognito.
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