The cancellation of Kestrel is leading to developers working on the title getting reassigned to other projects in Remedy. This also means that the studio is reducing its overall recruitment efforts for the now-cancelled project.

In a statement, Remedy CEO Tero Virtala spoke about the project still being in its early conceptual stages, and said that the decision to cancel Kestrel was made despite the title showing early promise.

“Codename Kestrel showed early promise, but the project was still in its early concept stage,” said Virtala. “Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits. We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations.”

When it was originally announced back in November, Kestrel was described by Remedy as featuring co-op multiplayer as a major component. The last major release by Remedy Entertainment was single-player horror title Alan Wake 2, which is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Vanguard is being rebooted, and is now being developed as a premium (i.e. paid) title. Now given the name codename Kestrel, Remedy says it will have “a strong, cooperative multiplayer component.” The studio, together with Tencent, decided to change direction “due to uncertainties in creating a successful game to the rapidly changing free-to-play market and associated risks.”

Remedy also confirms that, with the project having been rebooted, it is returning to the concept stage of development. “Core leadership and select members” from the project’s development team will continue to work on it, while the rest will be moved to other projects that are currently in the works at the studio. As Kestrel, the game will now “lean more into Remedy’s core strengths”, while still being “built on many of the features, assets, and themes already designed for Vanguard.”

CEO Tero Virtala said, “We have made some great strides in free-to-play and multiplayer development in Vanguard. After a lot of careful consideration, we believe that taking on a new direction where the game will be built more around Remedy’s core competences is the right way to go. We are creating another distinct Remedy game with Tencent’s continued support in making a great cooperative multiplayer experience.”

Beyond Kestrel, Remedy Entertainment has a number of major projects in the works. The studio is currently working on two expansions for the recently-released Alan Wake 2, and recently confirmed that Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake has moved into the production readiness stage. Multiplayer Control spinoff Condor has also made similar progress, while Control 2 remains in the proof-of-concept stage.