Finnish studio Treatment Leisure was based all the best way again in 1995, 28 years in the past, and in that point it is launched seven video games: Demise Rally, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, Quantum Break, and Management. That works out to at least one recreation each 4 years, which is not unhealthy for a smaller, unbiased studio. However Treatment has plans to ramp that price up significantly, starting this yr.
By way of most of its historical past, Treatment was a one-game-a-time studio, however in recent times it is expanded its capability significantly. It is now engaged on a number of tasks concurrently (opens in new tab), together with Alan Wake 2, a Management spinoff known as Codename Condor, a “bigger-budget Management recreation” often known as Codename Heron, and a service-based co-op multiplayer recreation codenamed Vanguard, for which it partnered with Tencent. The studio now has 5 “AAA video games” in growth, which is a serious change from the pre-Management days.
“The transfer to this multi-project mannequin has been going nicely, however we even have felt some development pains with implementing our mannequin, as was partially evidenced in summer season 2022 with the extra time wanted for the Vanguard undertaking,” Treatment CEO Tero Virtala stated in an buyers report (opens in new tab) launched at present.
“Subsequently throughout 2022, we’ve got taken our learnings and made adjustments: We’ve got strengthened our recreation groups and adjusted their management roles, some outsourcing partnerships have been modified, there have been variety of enhancements how we plan and lead project-work, and we’ve got developed the best way firm administration oversees, supervises and helps our recreation tasks.”
After managing a 32% revenue margin (opens in new tab) by way of 2020 and 2021, Treatment plans to proceed increasing: Virtala stated the studio employed virtually twice as many new workers in 2022 because it did in 2021, and “Wanting forward, we see the chance to maintain on investing in personnel by hiring skilled, passionate and inventive, challenge-driven people to drive our recreation tasks onward.” All that further employees is not simply to assist Treatment do extra, but in addition to do issues quicker.
“The investments in our groups, Northlight recreation engine and power set, assist capabilities and exterior growth are the important thing enablers for our subsequent development leap through the coming years,” Virtala stated. “We’re planning to launch a brand new recreation per yr ranging from 2023, accompanied by extra free and paid content material.”
That is a critical speed-up by any measure, significantly given how sudden it’s: We had American Nightmare in 2012, Quantum Break in 2016, and Management in 2019; Treatment’s subsequent recreation, Alan Wake 2, is predicted this yr. (Alan Wake Remastered and the Crossfire X singleplayer marketing campaign occurred in that interval too, however I do not take into account them “new” video games.) To maneuver from that easygoing tempo to hammering out a brand new recreation yearly is a hell of a shift.
Alan Wake 2 is outwardly nonetheless on schedule: Virtala stated it’s now in full manufacturing, will quickly have all content material in place and “is playable from begin to end.” Apparently, he additionally stated that Alan Wake Remastered, which launched in October 2021, nonetheless hasn’t generated any royalties, however he expects these gross sales will enhance as Alan Wake 2 approaches launch “and new gamers need to expertise the unique story on new technology consoles.”
Treatment is not the one studio aiming to hurry up its tempo of releases: CD Projekt stated in October 2022 that it plans to launch an all-new Witcher trilogy (opens in new tab) inside a six-year interval—that is one full-scale Witcher RPG each two years. Within the face of Cyberpunk 2077’s unhealthy launch (opens in new tab) and the bigger pattern of continued recreation delays (opens in new tab) over the course of the pandemic, that is definitely optimistic.