Smilegate’s CrossFire is something of an institution. Since its debut in the late 2000s it has grown to become one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world, with a lifetime player count sitting at well over 500 million. Although most of that audience resides across Asia, CrossFireX will see the long-running franchise making its way to consoles later this year – enhanced for Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Where alongside tactical, fast faction-based multiplayer shooting, a cinematic single-player campaign developed by Remedy is making its debut.

Episodic in nature, Remedy’s excursion into the CrossFire universe will showcase stories and characters across both in-game factions: Black List and Global Reach, in an experience that will appeal to both players old and new.

“We want to try and convey that sense of comradery of a finely tuned, special operations team heading into battle,” Thomas Puha, Head of Communications at Remedy tells me. “Show you the chaos that happens behind enemy lines in a unique cinematic experience.”

For the team at Remedy it’s a project the studio has been working on for a few years, with the Finnish-based story masters collaborating with South Korea’s Smilegate every step of the way. Recently we had the chance to sit down with members of the team at Remedy to discuss CrossFireX, its development, legacy, and place in the Remedy single-player ‘Hall of Fame’.

Origin Story

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With the deal first made public back in 2016, one that would see the studio behind Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and most recently Control, collaborate and work within an already established IP; part of the announcement highlighted that Smilegate specifically chose Remedy to develop CrossFire’s single-player content.

“The good thing was that Smilegate approached us,” Tuukka Taipalvesi, Executive Producer at Remedy explains. “They were stepping into territory that was not familiar to them and they sought our help. When we started to pitch them ideas, and I'm not saying that we had an easy time getting things through, we had a very good starting position to present how we saw this play out.”

With CrossFire’s popularity across Asia the team at Remedy dove headfirst into the vast amount of lore, narrative and story already circulating within, and around, the CrossFire universe. “Our initial step was to construct a timeline, and from there find an anchor point to lay our foundation,” Tuukka continues. “After knowing that timeline and all the historic events we started to design our characters, whose eyes we will see the world through.”

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"The good thing was that Smilegate approached us. They were stepping into territory that was not familiar to them and they sought our help.”

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As a multiplayer title there was no in-depth lore akin to a fantasy tome written by someone with so many names they need to abbreviate to something like K. R. R. Andreadis. In terms of history, Remedy began to flesh-out the backstory with new events and moments.

“When we play around in someone else's sandbox, there are of course rules to adhere to. And that extends to when we build our narrative and develop characters,” Tuukka adds. “But we came up with our own version of the timeline, and we developed and created new historic events in addition to characters. Even though this is Remedy’s first step into an IP outside of our own, it still felt like a free ride for us to determine what works best.”

A First, First-Person Shooter

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“It's never easy, but you can break it down into simpler steps and… start from there?” Tuukka posits, explaining to me the difference that comes from developing a first-person shooter versus third-person action — Remedy’s bread-and-butter. “We have quite a few FPS veterans within Remedy, so we had a good starting point. You start from the basics though: how shooting works, the first-person camera [and] try to get those in a good state. At the same time, you have the rest of the team working on characters and the narrative; everything happening in parallel.”

Although CrossFire is established to the point where the game has its own distinct look and feel, Remedy’s single-player content has been built on the studio’s proprietary Northlight Engine. With Smilegate working on bringing the series into the 4K-era with the likes of CrossFire, the cinematic gameplay tool most recently seen in the stunning Control, leveraging cutting edge technology and features at a scale rarely seen, will drive the story component.

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"We have quite a few FPS veterans within Remedy, so we had a good starting point. You start from the basics though: how shooting works, the first-person camera [and] try to get those in a good state.”

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“When you think about CrossFire, especially at the beginning, Smilegate were aiming for it to run on a low PC spec,” Mikko Kinnunen, Art Director at Remedy explains. “A decision made to reach as large an audience as possible. When we set out to make the Remedy campaign, it was never an expectation that we would stick to that sort of spec. We were always going to push this as far as we could, especially on Xbox. I kind of picture us making the movie version of the original.”

Going back to Smilegate’s decision to approach Remedy, it was the studio’s focus on visuals alongside action that Smilegate saw as a potential means to push the visual side of CrossFire further. And although the campaign is built on a different engine, one suited to the blockbuster movie style seen in the recent gameplay trailer, there still needs to be some cross-over. “Our version of CrossFire, our single-player campaign, sits alongside the multiplayer,” Taipalvesi enthuses. “So, we have to find the spots, the moments, characters or environments, audio — whatever it is, for them to gel. Have the two work together.”



Perhaps the biggest change outside of the switch in perspective, versus other Remedy releases over the years, is the 60 frames-per-second target for CrossFireX’s campaign. With an extended gameplay demo shown to AusGamers, running on Xbox One X hardware (Remedy has announced that an optimised for Series X version is coming), the results are nothing short of impressive.

Like watching a mission from a Call of Duty or Battlefield campaign, where shooting blends with explosive shifts in direction, there was also a distinct focus on the stuff that Remedy does so well – cinematic action mechanics and intimate character moments.

“We wanted to ensure that we hit a solid 60 FPS but still get the lighting, physics and effects in there,” Thomas Puha says. “One of things you saw being used was the Combat Breaker, our version of bullet time for CrossFire. It just makes everything even cooler, and is the sort of stuff you might expect from a Remedy game.”

East Meets West

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“We did play quite a bit of the multiplayer while we were designing the campaign,” Taipalvesi confirms, when the discussion shifts a little deeper into the mechanics side. “There is stuff not accessible to anyone yet [in CrossFire multiplayer] that has influenced our event design. CrossFire is fast paced and that's something we tried to bring into the experience. But at the same time, for people that play in a more tactical way, we have a high enough degree of difficulty so [they] can have that type of an experience too.”

This can be seen in abilities and weapons and using characters to potentially portray different styles of play – measured, guns blazing, or something in-between. One example being the new Spectre cloaking stuff seen in the CrossFireX Beta. An easy assumption to make for the single-player CrossFireX project is to think of Remedy as hired guns. Working with Smilegate to present a version of the multiplayer experience, add some broader appeal, but strictly within this scope.

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“There is stuff not accessible to anyone yet [in CrossFire multiplayer] that has influenced our event design.

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Of course, that’s not what Remedy does, and the CrossFireX campaign has been designed to tell a larger story through tightly-wound episodes focusing on different characters and locations. A project that sounds every bit like something the studio might cook up on its own, a big budget TV-style series where longform storytelling meets action-packed moments and events. A car chase here, a last-minute escape there, or something completely unexpected. Like driving off a ledge and into a dam.

“Like with every partnership, it took awhile for it to get up and running, to learn how each party kind of works,” Thomas Puha says of the collaboration process and Remedy driving this side of the CrossFireX experience, adding that its familiarity with story-driven content and Smilegate’s lack thereof did prove to be a challenge.

“One thing to keep in mind is that Smilegate is also a developer,” Mikko Kinnunen adds. “A lot of times when we show something, or when there's a conversation, sometimes we get a whole lot approved immediately and they love it. But there are times when they want to see a tweak here or there. It’s cool because it's mostly from that perspective of ‘how about this instead of that’. With Smilegate providing detailed reasons as to why.”


That said, there are areas where CrossFireX looks unlike anything that has come from Remedy – character designs that have a distinct feel. “There's an Eastern flavour there for sure,” Mikko confirms. “We worked very closely on the look of the characters with Smilegate. Take properties like Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil, the characters there are larger than life and idealised. They're not necessarily as grounded and beat up as a Rockstar character might be. There is that difference here, and in many ways, this is like East meets West. We take the best of what Remedy does, while also keeping the Eastern influences for legacy.”

“It is a global product, and that has been one of the things we have considered throughout development, starting from the story across to the visual design,” Tuukka Taipalvesi concludes. “We have a very diverse group of people at Remedy, their backgrounds, gender, everything. We try to get that sense of diversity into our games so that people can have different connection points to the characters, the environment, the story. CrossFire is no different.”

CrossFireX is currently on track for a 2020 release on Xbox One and Xbox Series X, where in addition to 4K-enhanced and expanded multiplayer from Smilegate, critically acclaimed studio Remedy is bringing its blend of cinematic action to the single-player component to be made available as part of a Battle Pass.