Remedy changes CEO; company founder Markus Mäki temporarily takes the helm

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 10/22/2025 at 11:02 am EET.

The replacement of the long-serving CEO came as a surprise to us, although Remedy's performance in recent years has been weak, and ultimately the CEO is responsible for that. Overall, during Virtala's tenure, Remedy has developed significantly as a company and the strategy has progressed in the right direction, even though there have also been mistakes along the way (multiplayer projects). We do not expect the change of CEO to cause major changes to Remedy's strategy, and we believe the company will fully focus on its core business of story-driven single-player games after its multiplayer experiments.

Founder Markus Mäki appointed interim CEO

Remedy announced on Wednesday that CEO Tero Virtala and the company's Board of Directors have jointly agreed that Virtala will immediately step down from his position as Remedy's CEO. Virtala has been at the helm since August 2016. Remedy will immediately launch a recruitment process for a new CEO. Virtala will continue to serve the company in other roles for an agreed transition period, supporting the transfer of CEO duties.

Remedy's Board of Directors has appointed Markus Mäki as the new interim CEO, effective October 22, 2025. Mäki is one of the company's founding shareholders. He has been a member of the company's Board of Directors since 1995 and served as Chairperson until his appointment. He also serves as a member of the company's management team, responsible for production. With the appointment, Mäki will step down as Chairperson of the Board and continue as an ordinary member. The Board elected Henri Österlund as the new Chairperson, who has been a member of Remedy's Board since 2017.

During Tero Virtala's tenure, Remedy has grown from a small subcontractor into a multi-project game studio

At the beginning of Tero Virtala's tenure as CEO, Remedy began its transition to a multi-project model and a journey up the value chain from a subcontractor to an independent game developer and publisher. In the big picture, the strategy has taken major steps forward during this period, and today Remedy's resources and capabilities are sufficient for the simultaneous development of two projects in full production. The company has also built the capabilities to act as a publisher for its own games. The company now also holds two fully owned game brands (Alan Wake and Control).

The biggest failures on Remedy's path to becoming a multi-project studio have been the company's multiplayer projects. The F2P multiplayer project Vanguard (eventually Kestrel) with Tencent had to be scrapped, and FBC: Firebreak, released in the summer, has also been an unsuccessful project. We expect Remedy to discontinue the game during next year.  Both of these projects have consumed a lot of the company's focus over the years, and a considerable amount of capital has also been poured into them. All this time and resources could have been channeled into the company's core competence – the development of story-driven single-player games. This is, of course, easy to state in retrospect, and the decisions to launch multiplayer projects were made in a much more favorable market environment.

During Virtala's tenure, Remedy's share price development also reflects the progress of its strategy, having risen by approximately 130% from its 2017 IPO price (EUR 5.65). However, relative to Remedy's business's higher-than-average risk level, the return is at best satisfactory from a long-term investor's perspective. Of course, the share was long at around EUR 30-50 in 2020-2022, which also offered profitable exit points. Relative to those levels, the current share price of approximately EUR 13 is a clear disappointment and reflects the challenges the company has faced in recent years. Also, the gaming market outlook and stock market sentiment are currently in a significantly weaker position.