Remedy CEO Tero Virtala has stepped down with immediate effect, as the Finnish studio deals with the fallout of its live service disaster.
Last week the company revealed that it was effectively writing off the entire development budget of FBC: Firebreak, after the first-person shooter failed to find a foothold in the crowded co-op market.
Now Virtala, who took the reins in 2016, will work an “agreed transition period” while it finds a new leader. Co-founder Markus Mäki will temporarily take on the role of interim CEO, effective today.
The Alan Wake maker had been expecting to post a profit during its current financial period, but weak sales of the aforementioned online effort forced it to write down a non-cash impairment of €14.9 million, which practically covers the entire development budget of the game.
There’s no word on whether the failure of FBC: Firebreak is connected to Virtala’s departure, but it seems logical to make that conclusion given the immediacy of it all.
For what it’s worth, incoming interim CEO Mäki thanked Virtala for his contributions and wished him “all the best for the future”.
Despite all this disruption, Remedy should be fine: it’s currently working on a couple of Max Payne remakes for Rockstar, as well as the highly anticipated Control 2.