Guntech 2 is a follow-up to an Atari ST game called Utopos from 1993, so by the nature of it, Guntech 2 is a retro-style game. The original Utopos game was the first published game ever made by Utopos Games founder Mr. Jani Penttinen.

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Why is the game called Guntech 2?

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In the mid 1990s, a sequel to the original Utopos was in development at Remedy Entertainment (yes, the same classic studio that has created Max Payne, Alan Wake and Control!) The publisher of the game didn't like the name Utopos, so the game was renamed to Guntech. Ultimately, the game was never released as Remedy focused its efforts to a single game called Dark Justice (which was ultimately renamed to Max Payne). Guntech 2 is not a remake of the game that Remedy was working on, but rather a sequel to it - therefore it's called Guntech 2.

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Jani has chronicled his history as a game developer, and how he helped shape the entire game industry in Finland, in a post here: https://www.janipenttinen.com/post/who-is-jani-penttinen-the-game-developer

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The birth story of Guntech is really unique

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Jani had already left the game industry behind years earlier when his young children found out that their dad had been a game developer long before they were born.

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The kids were really excited that their dad had this cool past, instead of the boring businessman he had been through their lives. Like a veteran musician dusting his guitar, Jani installed Unity, which didn't even exist when he last worked on games and started learning how to make games again. After three years, and with a lot of cheering from his kids, Jani is now a full-time game developer once again, ready to release his first game in over 10 years.

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What is also special is that Jani has returned to the early days of game development, where one developer built the entire game. Altogether Guntech 2 took four years to build. 

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The first full release of Guntech 2 came in December 2020 as a launch title for a new console, Atari VCS. Guntech 2 was the best-selling and most talked-about game at the console launch and has continue to be one of the top-selling games on the platform to date.

The game was completely rewritten and the amount of content was doubled for the Xbox release a year later, however the release almost never happened as Jani caught a bad case of Covid-19 just before the release. This episode was chronicled by the Wired Magazine here. 

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The game has been further refined for Nintendo Switch release in January 2023, and the updates will be carried over to all of the other platforms as well. Guntech 2 features cross-platform leaderboards where gamers on all various platforms are battling for the top score.

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The title music was composed by Frank Klepacki, a true game industry legend best known for his work at Westwood Studios, where he worked together with Jani on the Command & Conquer games.

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