Max Payne studio Remedy has canceled its premium multiplayer title

Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind Alan Wake and Max Payne, has announced that it will stop development of Codename Kestrel, a premium co-op multiplayer game, in order to focus on other projects.

The details:

• Originally dubbed Codename Vanguard, Kestrel was supposed to be a "premium game with a strong, cooperative multiplayer component" created by a smaller team, with Tencent set to publish the title. The project began as a free-to-play release before being rebooted last year due to concerns with current market trends.

• Remedy has confirmed that Kestrel has been canceled in order to focus on its other upcoming releases, and that members of its development team have been assigned to other projects. “The decision to cancel codename Kestrel allows Remedy to focus more on the other games in its portfolio,” the studio said. “Other ongoing game development projects will get experienced developers reassigned from Kestrel. In addition, the planned investment needs for Kestrel are removed and Remedy’s overall recruitment needs are reduced.”

• In an accompanying statement, Studio CEO Tero Virtala stated that the project "showed early promise," but was still in the "early concept stage" when it was cancelled.

• Remedy is currently working on remakes of the first two Max Payne games, Control 2 and Codename Condor, a co-op game set in the world of Control that is in its final stages of development.

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