The Finnish studio behind Max Payne started out in a basement
Remedy Entertainment made its first game in a team member's basement. The Finnish studio, founded in 1995 by members of the demoscene group Future Crew, went on to create Max Payne, a shooter that began under the working title Dark Justice until its backer decided that name sounded too dark.
The founders came from groups making demos for PCs and Amiga computers. By 1994 Finland already had two commercial game studios, Bloodhouse and Terramarque, and their example made Future Crew members see that the group would never turn into a business on its own. Their first project, a racing game called HiSpeed, gained vehicle combat at the suggestion of Apogee founder Scott Miller and came out in 1996 as Death Rally. Needing dialogue, Petri Järvilehto turned to an old friend studying English literature, Sam Lake, later the studio's creative director.
In 1997 the team also built a benchmarking tool, Final Reality, whose developers spun off as the sister company Futuremark. A letter dated 9 July 1998 brought a legal threat from LucasArts, which claimed Remedy's logo copied the top of its own, although a redesign was already under way. For the next game Miller agreed to fund an isometric shooter on condition that it gained 3D graphics, a strong central hero in the mould of Duke Nukem, and a better name.
That game became Max Payne. Take-Two Interactive, parent of Rockstar Games, paid $10 million for the rights to the franchise, and Remedy returned to make a sequel with wide creative freedom. After seven years on the series, the team wanted something new and tried an open-world design, then settled on a linear story when resources ran short; drawing on Stephen King's novels and Twin Peaks, the project became Alan Wake.
Microsoft passed on an Alan Wake sequel but wanted an original project, which led to Quantum Break, mixing the game with live-action storytelling and running on Remedy's own Northlight engine. The studio also tried mobile: a Death Rally remake for iOS and Android took eight months, cost just $10,000 to market and drew more than 11 million players. Remedy listed its shares in 2017, and a year later traded up to bigger Espoo headquarters.
Source: Remedy Entertainment
