Last night, Remedy Entertainment took home two awards at The Finnish Game Awards 2020; Big Screen Game of the Year and Finnish Game of the Year!
With the threat of Covid-19, the ceremony was held remotely from Finland, and livestreamed to virtual attendees on Tuesday evening, but the challenging situation didn't change the impact of what the win meant for the studio. On their social media channels, they posted "nothing beats winning on home turf, so this means so much to us. A huge thank you from the whole Control team!" The game's Executive Producer, Juha Vaino called in from his home office, to accept the awards on behalf of the development team.
In case you missed it, you can watch the livestream in full on the NeoGames website or below:
Big Screen Game of the Year Acceptance Speech: "a huge thanks to everyone who voted for us. There are so many pixels on the big screen, so it's absolutely important to utilize them perfectly, it's great to know that you guys think that we did it well. For Control, there is one single person deciding for every single pixel where it goes, it's the art director, Janne Pulkkinen. Thank you, Janne, this award for you. Thank you, the whole Control development team. Thank you Remedy Entertainment. Thank you, 505Games. Thank you everyone, Hempuli, Frozenbyte, Ubisoft, 10guy. Thanks, I love you. "
Finnish Game of the Year Acceptance Speech: "first of all, again, thanks to everyone who voted. It's incredible getting the Finnish game of the year presented. As you might have known, we've gotten a few awards here and there, but nothing beats the validation on your home turf. It's actually... in Finland, you guys are a tough crowd. So, huge thanks! Thanks, everybody! If you've played Control, you might have noticed that Finland also played a significant part in the game. We have the janitor, Ahti, who speaks in this weird "rally-English", probably a bit similar to mine, he goes to the sauna and he does all sorts of weird stuff as we Finns tend to do. He also sings, probably the first-ever Finnish tango in a game, Sankarin Tango, sung actually by Martti Suosalo, who was the actor of Ahti! Written by Sam Lake and composed by Petri Alanko. So, Finland, Finland, Finland! It's such an honour to receive this Finnish Game of the Year Award. I would like to thank specifically one person, Game Director, Mikael Kasurinen, who led the creative effort from start to finish, and whose vision for the whole game is so huge. Thank you for you, Mikael. It's been truly an honour working with you on this. Also thanks everybody who contributed, we had a team of about one hundred people, so every single person made a significant effort and really impacted the quality of the game. Also, Remedy, you've been great. 505Games, thank you! And, again, the whole Finnish games industry, it's an amazing feeling, so thank you!"
This year is a big one as it marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the event, a milestone celebrated alongside Remedy and Housemarque who were all founded in the same year. At the 1:20:45 mark, Saana (Vice-Chair of the Board Finnish Game Developers Association) spoke to Ilari Kuittinen (CEO at Housemarque) and Tero Virtala (CEO at Remedy) about their milestones.
At the 1:39:40 mark, the Game Music Collective also performed a number of tracks selected from Finnish game developers including Angry Birds, Trials Fusion, Trine, Clash of Clans, and Alan Wake, among others. It's a really beautiful medley and well worth checking out!
You can see the press release of The Finnish Game Awards' winners, HERE!
