A handful of studios, Remedy Entertainment above all, have spent three decades building games that critics and players return to years after release. Max Payne, released in 2001, introduced “bullet time” to a mainstream audience and wrapped a fairly conventional shooter in a genuinely noir-inflected script, something few games of the era attempted seriously. Remedy still developed the 2003 sequel alongside Rockstar before stepping away from the franchise entirely; Rockstar Studios later produced Max Payne 3 on its own in 2012. Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2After parting ways with the Max Payne IP, Remedy spent years developing an original property. Finland’s mobile giants built empires on downloads measured in the billions; its PC and console studios built reputations on review scores, award nominations, and games that critics still reference as reference points years later.