Today, Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games announced plans for a multiplayer spin-off to Control, the mind-bending third-person shooter released in 2019. The project, codenamed Condor, is being developed for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
“We get that there is going to be skepticism about multiplayer,” Control franchise director Mikael Kasurinen wrote on the Remedy website. “But I believe we can create shared experiences without compromising the unique DNA of who we are, or the stories we want to tell. Yes, we need to re-think our angles, our techniques, our mindset, but we see it as an exciting challenge: What would a Remedy multiplayer game look like?”
The press release describes the Condor project as a “four-player, cooperative, player vs. environment game,” putting it more in line with something like Borderlands or Destiny than a purely competitive shooter. Other than that, it remains to be seen exactly what Remedy and 505 Games have in store, as Kasurinen has said that it will be a “long time” before anything is ready to show to the public.
Condor has been given a €25 million budget, slightly less than the €30 million that was reportedly spent to develop Control, but it’s also just one of the universe-expanding projects in the works.
“Control is more than one location, character, or story,” Kasurinen continued. “We have more. Something ambitious. As today’s announcement stated, [we] ‘have outlined high-level collaboration terms to further expand the Control franchise with a bigger-budget Control game.’ I unfortunately cannot go into more detail than that, but suffice to say, I’m extremely excited for the future of the Control franchise.”
Control launched to critical acclaim two years ago, with much of the praise being reserved for its SCP Foundation-style world-building. Since then, the game has received a next-gen upgrade on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, greatly improving upon its formerly shoddy home console performance.
It’s clear we received only a fleeting glimpse of Control’s expansive lore in the first game, so I can’t wait to step back into the Oldest House. I just hope Kotaku will let me expense a cryogenic sleep chamber to help me pass the years we’re going to have to wait for these projects.