Alan Wake 2 which came out last year proved to be a commercial success for Remedy Entertainment. The success of the game set the course for the studio’s upcoming games which include Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake, alongside Control 2, and Condor.
All of these games are expected to enter the next stages of development this year as the team has now shifted their focus to them. Among all of these, the Max Payne remakes are one of the most talked about titles as Max Payne fans are ready to see a modern take on the popular game series.
Max Payne remakes will cost the same as Alan Wake 2
Remedy Entertainment has joined hands with the Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games to come out with Max Payne 1 and 2 remake. The games will be launched on PC and the current generation consoles. The remakes have been one of the most anticipated games since it was initially announced by Remedy.
Moreover, many of these AAA games today come with huge development costs, and although the total budget of the upcoming Max Payne remakes or Alan Wake 2 hasn’t been revealed yet by Remedy, according to some estimates, Alan Wake 2 had a total budget of $75 million.
Thankfully, Alan Wake 2 turned out to be a commercial success and Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala in the company’s financial reports added that the game, “has already recouped a significant part of the investments made by Epic Games Publishing”. This has been possible after Alan Wake 2 sold over one million units by the end of 2023.
During the same financial report, Virtala also added that the Max Payne remakes have made significant progress and that the games have a similar development budget as that of Alan Wake 2. Moreover, the Max Payne remakes will be completely funded by Rockstar Games. According to this revelation then, the Max Payne remakes will cost around $75 million which is a huge amount in itself.
Remedy has justified the high budget of the remakes as they believe the new games to have a lot of potential. This huge increase in development costs comes at a time when Remedy’s revenue is down 22.2% year-over-year. Therefore, the developers are banking on the Max Payne remakes to turn things around for the studio.
Max Payne remakes’ production cost is a problem
However, these huge development costs come with their own challenges i.e. recouping the cost. This is because even though Alan Wake 2 turned out to be the fastest selling game by Remedy ever, it has only managed to recover a portion of its development costs. As mentioned by Remedy earlier, the game managed to sell 1.3 million units by the start of February this year, however, the studio hasn’t made a penny of profit.
Therefore, despite being Remedy’s fastest-selling title, the game has not turned profitable yet and since the Max Payne remakes will also have a similar development budget, things might not look good for Remedy.
Even if the remakes launch on PCs and all current generation consoles like Alan Wake 2, there is no guarantee that the games will manage to become profitable as for this they need to sell copies even faster than Alan Wake 2. Therefore it remains to be seen if games like Alan Wake 2 and Max Payne remakes ever turn profitable.
