Remedy Entertainment and Annapurna Pictures have entered a strategic partnership, where Annapurna will be financing half the budget for Control 2, the upcoming video game. Annapurna Pictures is a movies and TV show production company with a diverse portfolio in movie production with films such as Zero Dark Thirty, Her, American Hustle, and Booksmart.

As per the agreement, Annapurna will finance 50% of the development budget for Control 2, and will receive the rights to adapt Control and Alan Wake into movies and shows. However, full IP rights for both Control and Alan Wake will remain with Remedy Entertainment.

“This agreement will ensure we can develop Control 2 into the best game possible, allow us to move into self-publishing for selected titles and expand our franchises to other mediums� said Tero ??Virtala, CEO of Remedy Entertainment.

Remedy will receive a greater revenue share from the sales of Control 2 whereas Annapurna will get the larger bite of revenue made from potential Control and Alan Wake movies and shows in the future.

The deal will enable Remedy Entertainment to remain independent after Remedy acquired full rights to the Control franc?hise from publisher?? 505 Games back in February 2024.

Currently, Remedy Entertainment is actively working on Max Payne 1 and 2 remake, whereas Control 2 was said to be in the "production readiness stage", during a recently released half-yearly financial report. Max Payne 1 and 2 remake was in the �a href="//jbsgame.com/remedy-entertainment-max-payne-remakes-now-??in-productio??n-readiness-stage/">production readiness stage�for 10 months before it entered full production. So, it is estimated that Control 2 might enter the ?full development stage by June 2025.

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Remedy Entertainment has officially closed its online store and merch shop due to the ongoing costs of running such a venture and the simple fact that without much larger orders, it can't afford to support the side business while also crafting brilliant games like Alan Wake 2.

The store was closed on June 19, 2024, taking with it quite the collection of incredible Remedy game-themed merch. Among clothes sporting the developer's logo were products like the Night Falls Blend coffee. However, the most popular products, such as the Oh Deer Diner Thermos, were created in partnership w??ith other companies an?d will be available again in the future. For now, though, anyone with a Remedy Entertainment sweater or t-shirt has a piece of wearable history.

Hold your Remedy Entertainment merch close now the official store is closed

The closure of Remedy Entertainment's merch store was announced well in advance. Following the closure, Thomas Puha, the develo??per's communications director, provided some context about the realities of running a merch store.

The post is honest about the challenges ev??en a developer with the reputation Remedy Entertainment has faced while running a merch store. "It's near impossible to make merch break even unless you have a large volume and order from China." This feels like an impossible situation because the store could have made large volume orders to bring costs down and sit on stock, but I don't know many game developers with space to spare for hundreds of boxes of cl?othes.

Puha goes on to say, "While people think we are leaving money on the table, we really aren't. You need massive volumes for this to work. For now the way is to find great partners to collaborate with like Airam and Makia and not having us worrying about stock, shipping logistics, customer service, etc, etc." It's important to note here that the best and e?asiest products to produce and sell from Remedy's point of view were those that involved a third-party who handled shipping, production, and storage.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. Remedy Entertainment is a game developer, first and foremost, and always will be. But the closure of the merch store doesn't mean merch is off the table forever. Puha added alongside this explanation. "Still, we definitely want to do merch, for sure, it sucks that we don't have more of it for all of you and at reasonable prices and shi??pping. We'll get to it sooner rathe??r than later."

I love video game shirts and sweaters. Most of them tend to be incredi??bly well made, with logos and details printed onto clothing that fits well and sta??nds the test of time. At the time of writing, I don't own a thing with the Remedy Entertainment logo on it, but I really hope the studio lets me change that one day.

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Last year's Alan Wake 2 was a triumph, not only in the survival horror genre but in AAA gaming in general. Given the high praise, it's no wonder we declared it one of our favorite games of 2023. And for good reason, too.

As well as great reviews all around, the Alan Wake follow-up has also been selling well. According to developer Remedy Entertainment, the long-awaited sequel has sold 1.3 million units, as of February 2024. A post on the developer's website says it's the fastest-selling gam??e the company has ever released "so far."

Indeed, it's not been out for too long, so time will tell how big the game can get in terms of sales, especially once DLC hits. By comparison, Control has sold over four million units since it launched in 2019. However, AW2 has sold "over 50% more copies and over three times more digita?l copies in its first two months" than ??that.

Awards, they keep a-comin'

On top of this, Remedy was proud to announce that Alan Wake 2 recently received the DICE Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction." That's one more accolade to be thrown on the pile, right next to such wins as "Critics Choice Award" at Golden Joystick, "Best Direction" and "Best Narrati??ve" at The Game Awards 2023, as well as some others.

Selling 1.3 million units in just a couple of months is mighty impressive, even if you take into account?? the fact that the game was launched not long before the holidays.

Of course, we also need to consider that Alan Wake 2 is a digital-only relea??se. Whether you agreed with that decision or not, one can't help but wonder how many more could have been sold by now i?f there was a physical copy available as well.

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After 13 long years, Alan Wake has returned and his flashlight is brighter than ever. Ilkka Villi, who stars as Alan in Alan Wake 2 and its predecessor, recently had an interview with Wassup Conversations where? he discussed his experiences playing the writer.??

Villi explains how he landed the role over a decade ago. He claims he was already familiar with Remedy in 2005, and he went for an audition for the studio. Not long after, he got a call from Sam Lake and found himself as the protagonist of Alan Wake.

It's no easy feat playing Alan, as separate people perform the character's voice and motion capture. While Villi hand??les the motion capture, Matthew Poretta voices the writer. Achieving this requires fine-tuned coordination, as Villi has to ensure his performance matches the voice acting.

Alan isn't the only character Villi has played in the franchise. He reveals that he also did motion capture for one of the Anderson brothers and even a few female NPCs in the first game. In Alan Wake 2, he also plays Scratch and Thomas Zane.

When discussing Alan's personality, Villi points out how the character can be quite angry and abrasive at? times. Alan "really gets a punishment" by being trapped in the Dark Place, though Vil??li admires how the character never gives up despite his monumental challenges.

Working with Sam Lake

Villi also discusses working with the creative genius Sam Lake. He reveals how it's a pleasure working with Lake because of how full of ideas he is. Despite this, he's always open to suggestions and he always wants to know how others feel about ideas. Thanks to the use of his face for Max Payne and Alex Casey,? Lake has become a re?cognizable figure in gaming but Villi claims that the writer remains humble despite the fame.

Lake plays a large role in Alan Wake 2 where he plays Casey and sometimes even himself. Villi compliments Lake's acting skills, though he also hilariously describes how the writer was later re??luctant to perform scenes he had written for himself.

Since its launch, Alan Wake 2 has been celebrated by cri?tics, and it managed to snag 8 The Game Awards nominations. Th?ough Alan may be in the Dark Place, it's clear that Remedy's future is looking bright.

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Alan Wake 2 is not only a great horror game; it also looks pretty. While it's not al??ways about what something looks like, a recent video really hammers home just how far graphics and graphical technology have come over the years.

In the most recent episode of Digital Foundry, we get an analysis of Alan Wake 2, with particular reference to its use of ray tracing (RT) and path tra?cing (PT). Side-by-side comparisons really demonstrate just how effective algorithmic-based tweaks can improve the look of a video game.

For example, we can see that without ray tr?acing, small details are lost, such as sharp shadows, accurate reflections, and some general degradation in global illumination. We can then see that with RT and PT on, there's a notice??able difference in visual acuity.

It's lacking in some areas, though

However, it's by no means perfect. The DF video is a little critical of Alan Wake 2's inability to use path tracing to its fu?llest. The analysis suggests that native global illumination is likely overstepping on any attempts for the PT tech to make improvements, which we see in certain reflections or lighting. It still looks great, but it seems clear that the game could make improvements to path tracing to make it more effective.

So why does all this matter? For many gamers, it's probably not too important whether a shadow has sharper clarity or windows reflect the condiments of a diner. However, for more graphical purists, especially those who are using top-end AMD or Nvidia hardware, many will want to get the most out of their system. Ray tracing, path tracing, and image upscaling AI are pretty much standard these days, and it's nice to see that extra bit of work go into making a game look incredible, especially when you consider the price of gr?aphics cards.

The Digital Foundry video also gives some advice on how to optimize Alan Wake 2 to get the b??est frame rate, without losing too much of that graphical fidelity. While it seems as though Remedy Entertainment could always make it better, we get a nice idea of jus?t how far things like RT and PT have advanced.

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Alan Wake is the cornerstone upon which Remedy Entertainment's magnum opus rests. This magnum opus is, however, not any specific game, but their interrelationship, resulting in the creation of the Remedy Connected Universe.

And, though Control established RCU in concrete terms, understanding how it all ?began is crucial.

Naturally, it all began with Alan Wake proper. As Remedy's Sam Lake will attest, neither Quantum Break nor Max Payne are a part of the official RCU, and they will therefore be left aside for the purposes of recapping and explaining the full story of Alan Wake. We will, however, need to take a look at Control and American Nightmare to make sense of what's been going on, and how it all sets the stage for Alan Wake 2.

Oh, before we begin, it might be good to set the stage properly: Twin Peaks is one of the core inspirations for Remedy's Alan Wake and, as such, the Remedy-verse as a whole. Expect Lynchian logic here and there, then, with a dash of SCP slathered on top. Do expect plenty of spoilers below, for the previous Alan Wake games and Control.

Full recap and explanation of what happens in Alan Wake

As one might expect from a piece of media inspired by Twin Peaks, there are layers upon layers of narrative development present in Alan Wake, and there's no feasible way for us to cover all of them in a sensible manner. The story, as it were, begins with Alan himself and his wife, Alice, entering the Americana-core town of Bright Falls, Washington for a vacation. They rent out a small, lonely cabin at the Cauldron Lake, and intend to rest up for a little while.

However, while unpacking, Alice reveals to Alan that she has an ulterior motive for going to Bright Falls, specifically. As Alan had bee?n struggling with severe writer's block for years at the time, Alice worked out a plan to get him to meet Dr. Emil Hartman, a famous psychologist. Revealing this twist to Alan does not go according to plan, however, and the pair get into a huge fight that wraps up with Alice disappearing into ?the lake.

Cauldron Lake is no ordinary body of water, as Wake slowly realizes. Instead, it is something that Control would later define as a threshold: a connection between Earth and some other paranatural location. Cauldron Lake, specifically, connects to the Dark Place, a strange and malleable plane of existence that houses the aptly named Dark Presence, the main antagonist of Alan Wake. Thus begins the story!

Departure

The core of Alan Wake's gameplay loop ??is centred around the titular character's attempts at figuring out what on earth is going on in Bright Falls, who kidnapped Alice, and how to save her. The reveals are dished out in a bit of a meandering way, in typical Lynchian fashion, but the very gist of the tale is simpler than it seems at a glance.

Basically, the Dark Presence needs a talented and prolific artist to write it into existence on Earth, and Cauldron Lake is a powerful threshold where creative works can be turned into reality. Dr. Hartman, specifically, has been angling for artists like Alan Wake to come to Bright Falls, so that he could use them as vessels for the Dark ??Presence, and that's precisely what happens here.

Though the Dark Presence only has a limited amount of power?? on Earth at the start of the game, it is a formidable paranatural force that can affect living beings by a huge margin. The humans and animals that attempt to capture or kill Alan in the game, for example, are Taken by the Dark Presence to do its bidding. Yet, if it could leverage the writings of Alan Wake at Cauldron Lake, the Dark Presence would become far more "real" on Earth, giving it more power.

Initiation

It doesn't take long f?or Alan to come across his agent, Barry, and to recruit him as he looks for Alice. All manner of hell breaks loose along the way, including a fight with a Darkness-possessed mammoth skeleton, only for Hartman to eventually trap Wake and try to gas?light him into thinking he's simply having a mental breakdown caused by Alice's drowning.

Thankfully, Barry helps Alan escape from Hartman's psychiatric hospital, and the pair eventually end up getting drunk on moonshine distilled from Cauldron Lake water. This, in turn, gives Alan the ability to remember writing the mysterious Departure manuscript, the pages of which he had been collecting throughout the story. Aping the meta-myth of the Hero's Journey, Wake's Departure is, once? completed, going to allow the Dark Presence to pour onto Earth and do whatever it wants, which is obviously not a good thing.

While Wake couldn't put a stop to the madness, he figured that there might be a way for him to save Alice at least. To do so, he dives into Cauldron Lake to enter the Dark Place, and completes Departure. Doing so meant that Alice would be free to go away, but Wake had to stay and navigate the Dark Place all on his own. The main stor??y's narrative wraps ?up with the words: "It's not a lake, it's an ocean."

Return

Alan Wake received two additional "ep?isodes" to continue its main narrative. Titled 'The Signal' and ?'The Writer,' they're not outright crucial for our understanding of the Remedyverse lore, but they give valuable context and deal with Wake's adventures in the Dark Place.

The implications posed by these two stories are numerous, but the most important of them all comes in the end, after Wake had already battled it out with his own frenzied mind. Wake, now having grown accustomed to the logic of the Dark Place, begins writing the final third of the meta-myth, Return, which sets the stage for Alan Wake 2 way before American Nightmare and Control were even announced.

One notable tidbit of lore here is that the artists affected by Dark Presence cannot write whatever they want into being. Some sense of balance must be maintained, which is why Alan had to ?stay behind in the Dark Place, in order for Alice to escape.

The events of American Nightmare

While there's some discussion about whether American Nightmare is canon, as it wasn't included in the remaster of Alan Wake, everything points to it being quit?e crucial for Remedyverse as a whole. Firstly, it features Mr. Scratch, the evil doppelganger of Alan Wake who'd go on to haunt Alice Wake later on. Secondly, its ending poses the impl??ication that Wake cannot make anything and everything into reality just by virtue of writing it down from the Dark Place, and might instead simply be able to nudge certain events into reality.

Since Wake wrote the events of the American Nightmare as if they were an episode of an in-universe TV show, they only ever happened in the Dark Place, rather than on Earth. He never did reunite with Alice, and he didn't take down Mr. Scratch, ?either. Instead, the events played out as a nightmare that Wake's buddy, Barry, woke up screaming from.

The events of Control

Finally, there's Control. More so than any other Remedy Entertainment game, Control provided a wealth of context as to what's actually been going on in the background. Thresholds, Places of Power, Objects of Power, all of Alan Wake makes perfect sense when considered from the perspective provided by Control. In fact, many of the anomalies that the protagonist, Jesse Faden, deals with over the course of Control are extremely similar t??o what Wake has been dealing with all along, except from a slightly more ?scientific perspective.

After Wake disappears into Cauldron Lake and the Dark Place, Dr. Hartman decides to follow him, only to immediately get overtaken by the Dark Presence. This eventually led the Federal Bureau of Control to investigate and capture the infected, mutated Hartman, and take him back to the Oldest House. The bit that complicates things is that, during the events of Control, Hartman got infested by the Hiss as well, stacking one paranatural meme/parasite on top of another. Jesse, of course, kills Hartman in the end, but the ending of the AWE expansion pack suggests that a new Altered World Event ??will be taking place in Bright Falls - several years in the future.

As both Alan Wake and the standalone American Nightmare DLC explain Wake cannot outright change the real world, but might only be able to piece events together in a somewhat desirable way, it is unlikely that Wake wrote the entirety of Control into existence from scratch. I?nstead, the alternative theory is that Wake set the stage for the Hiss, the FBC, and Jesse herself to cross paths, so as to hopefully turn Jesse into the saviour that Wake needs to finally e??scape from the Dark Place.

Will Jesse Faden appear in Alan Wake 2? We don't know yet, but E?ntity A-001 sure s??eems to be making itself at home in Bright Falls.

The post What you need to know about Alan Wake’s story, before jumping into the sequel appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s almost time for Alan Wake 2, but if you haven’t played the original (or if you’d like to replay it before you jump into the sequel) you can get Alan Wake, as well as seven ??other spooky games, for $13. 

This deal is part of Humble Bundle’s “Fright of Your Life�bundle. The proceeds of this month's bundle go to support International Medical Corps and Direct Relief. If you pay at least $13, you can add STASIS: Bone Totem, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Bendy and the Dark Revival, Alan Wake Collector’s Edition, Hidden Deep, Tormented Souls, Pathologic 2, and Moons of Madness to your library on Steam.

Plus, it's the Alan Wake Collector’s Edition. This versio?n includes not only the base game but also a pair?? of special episodes called “The Signal�and “The Writer." There's also developer commentary, an illustrated PDF book, and a soundtrack with nearly an hour of fully mastered audio tracks composed by Petri Alanko, Old Gods of Asgard, and Poets of the Fall.

It’s just in time for the sequel, Alan Wake 2, on October 27 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via the Epic Games Store. The game's director, Sam Lake, also recently confirmed his plans for free DLC at this year's EGX. That is ??to say, catch up now before? your Alan Wake to-do list grows too long.

In addition to experiencing (for the first time, no less) the Pacific Northwest adventures of Alan Wake, being able to add both games in the Bendy and the Ink Machine duology to my library makes this bundle one I don’t want to pass up. I still haven’t been able to play Bendy and the Dark Revival, so this might be my best opportunity.

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While Alan Wake 2 can certainly fall under the horror category, it's hard to know whether the game will be scary or not. However, wh??at we can say for certain is that there w??ill be some additional content coming post-release, some of which will be free.

Director Sam Lake confirmed at EGX (in a Twitter post retweeted by Lake himself) that Alan Wake 2 will be getting some "free DLC drops" which ??are said to be "pretty significant." At this stage, there's no information ab??out what this new content will be.

However, in the short clip attached to the tweet, Lake goes on to say that the team will be able to go "more into detail pretty soon after the game is out," and that all this DLC "will be free for everyone" who has ??the game.

A turn-up for the books

It also looks as though Alan Wake 2 will al??so get some paid DLC. Again, not much is known about this yet. The sequel itself has yet to come out, but it's nice to know that there's more on the horizon.

It's been 13 years since the original installment came out on Xbox 360. ??While it may not have been much of a horror game-changer, it certainly left an impression on fans of the genre.

Now, with the second entry releasing on October 27, the long wait is finally nearly over. Also, if you're looking to get a new graphics card soon, you might be interested to learn that Alan Wake 2 is free with purchases of select Nvidia GPUs.

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Alan Wake 2 is almost upon us. After 13 year?s, fans will soon experience the sequel to the cult horror Xbox 360 hit. If you're excited about the game?, would you be interested in a free copy? Let me rephrase: would you be interested in a free copy if you're already purchasing a new graphics card?

That's what Nvidia is currently offering, at least. If you're in the market for some current-gen graphical firepower, and you want some survival horror goodness to go with it, you can get Alan Wake 2 free with purchases of select GPUs.

According to the Nvidia website, you'll be eligible if you buy an RTX 4070, 4070 Ti, 4080, and 4090 (if you feel like splashing out). It's not just PCs, either. A? laptop powered by the mobile versions of the 4070, 4080, and 4090 graphics chips also qualify.

T's and C's apply

Nvidia is offering this bundle until November 13, so you have a ??couple of weeks after the game comes out to take advantage of it. Of course, not everyone can affor?d brand-new hardware right now, but if you are looking to upgrade, this might be an enticing offer. Do check the site for full terms and conditions, though.

Alan Wake 2 is also one of the few games that features version 3.5 of Nvidia's DLSS upscaling tech. As such, it kind of mak?es sense that Team Green would want to partner with developer Remedy Entertainment.

As for the game itself, we're fast approaching spooky season, so horror is going to be everywhere by the time Halloween rolls around. Fans of the original are no doubt looking forward to the much-anticipated sequel. Hell, even I'm keen to check it out, and I wasn't a huge fan of Alan Wake to begin with.

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Sony's PlayStation Plus upcoming lineup sure is bleak

Sony has just revealed its PlayStation Plus lineup for July 2023. It will feature Alan Wake Remastered, Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Endlig - Extinction is Forever. All three titles will be available both on the PS4 and PS5 and for all tiers of PlaySt??ation Plus subscribers.

//twitter.com??/PlaySt?ation/status/1674077928911695872?s=20

Though that's a great trifecta of games, we must ask whether Sony knows anything more than we do about upcoming real-world events, becaus??e that's quite a bleak list.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

The biggest title of the bunch is Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. That's a pretty big addition to the PlayStation Plus library for Jul??y 2023, as it hasn't even ??been three years since it came out. Needless to say, its campaign will drag your squad through some made-up but still dark scenes of one of the most tense periods in the history of the modern world.

Though a far cry from the series' heyday, Cold War is still a neat addition to the franchise.

Alan Wake Remastered

The second is Alan Wake Remastered, Remedy's spiritual successor to Max Payne from 2010. Though not as violent as Remedy's Nu Noir action masterpiece, Alan Wake is far from a walk in the park. It draws inspiration from the stories of Stephen King, so expect things to get pretty dark and wicked.

Though it forces players to read pages upon pages of expository dialogue if they want to understand the plot—a red flag in a game about a storyteller if there ever was one—and despite featuring some combat mechanics that will feel old by the end of the game, it's still worth checking out. That's especially true if you're interested in the upcoming sequel.

Endling - Extinction is Forever

The third game is Endling - Extinction is Forever, whose name alone immediately makes them the bleakest ??of the bu??nch. Woah. What is this all about?

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiM2_XB_HZE

Oh, it's actually a side-scroller about cute innocent foxes. No way that'll turn dark very early on.

As with all PlayStation Plus titles, remember the deal: You don't lose the games if you happen to cancel your subscription, b??ut you'll only get to play them at a time when y??our subscription is active.

Sony has also announced a new Spotify playlist composed of PlayStation Plus g??ame-inspired songs. The company will be updating the list every month from now on. It's definitely worth checking out.

The post Here’s the PlayStation Plus Lineup for July 2023 appeared first on Destructoid.

I was barely curious, but now I'm wishlisting it

There was a lot to check out from yesterday's Summer Game Fest, and there's still a lot more to come. We'll be bringing details about what else has been showcased at this year's Geoff Keighley event, but there was definitely one thing of note for horror fans, and those who have been waiting for Alan Wake 2 will probably h?ave already checked out the new gameplay traile?r.

If you haven't, the new footage follows protagonist Saga Anderson, an FBI agent sent to investigate a series of murders in Bright Falls. The sequel takes place some 13 years after 2010's Alan Wake, and the recent trailer shown at SGF gives a brief taste of what's to come. With a much creepier vibe than its predecessor, it's one tha??t fans will probably be ke??eping an eye on. I now count myself among those people.

//youtu.be/2hm0AmdB9AM

The much darker atmosphere that it's got going for it immediately turned my head. I'll be honest with you. I was not a massive fan of Alan Wake. It was fine, but it just didn't pull me in the way it did with many other horror fans. Admittedly, it's been years since I played it, so maybe my memory of it is a bit hazy. I just remember it ?not leaving as big an impact on me as I'd hoped. The fact is, I wasn't paying too much a?ttention to the sequel until this gameplay footage emerged.

Perhaps it's obvious to say, but Alan Wake 2 looks like it's got a Resident Evil remake thing going for it. As a fan of this rejuvenation of Capcom's iconic series, AW2 definitely has a lot of appeal, even from this relatively short clip. It's too early to say, but I'm hoping the new installment will be somewhat broodier and atmospheric. It certainly looks a lot better, but that's to be expected given the years that have elapsed since the first game. Where the OG release didn't really scare me, I'm hoping this follow-up will offer up much more?????????????????????????? of a "brown pants" scenario.

In short, I had little interest in AW2 before.?? Then I saw the Summer Game Fest trailer. Now I think it could be one of this year's most exciting survival horror games.

Alan Wake 2 launches October 17 on ?PS5, PC, and X??box Series X.

The post Alan Wake 2 gameplay trailer caught m?y h??orror-loving attention appeared first on Destructoid.

Stephen King once said, 'a delayed game is eventually good...'

If you want to carry Alan Wake in your hands, but were put off by reports about the quality of the previously released Alan Wake Remastered port, it might be time for a second glance. Remedy Games dropped a patch on February 15 ??that addresses the game’s rampant performance issues.

[embed]//twitter.com/alanwake/status/1625860473857142790?s=2??0[/embed]

Alan Wake was first released back in 2010 on the Xbox 360 before later being ported to Windows. It was gussied up for Alan Wake Remastered for Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows platforms in 2021. The Remaster was then ported to Switch last year in 2022. Despite it being over a decade old and having run on comparable hardware, grizzled Destructoid veteran Jonathan Holmes reported that the port sucked out loud and compared it unfavorably to Wii ports of yore.

He did, however, admit that he “likes crappy looking gamesâ€?and that the poor quality of the port “gives the whole thing a litt??le of that dingy, broken and unsafe feeling you might get from one of Puppet Combo’s Indie Horror titles.â€?I also like crappy-looking games and especially Puppet Combo, but I have much less fondness for downgraded ports unless theyâ€??™re running on the ZX Spectrum.

This patch might keep that certain visual nostalgic je ne sais quoi in Alan Wake Remastered, but the framerate looks to have been made more comfortable. Users are reporting that the Switch version has been improved to a steady 30FPS in all in?stances. Framerate is very importan??t to some when it comes to visual comfort, and that shouldn’t be ignored.

Still, blurry graphics are a bugbear of their own. W?hile this patch is definitely a welcome improvement, I’m not holding my breath that the visual eccentricities will be addressed.

Alan Wake Remastered is already available on Nintendo Switch. If you’re willing to sacrifice portability, it might still be better to pick it up on PC,?? PlayStation, or Xbox instead.

The post Alan Wake R??emastered on Switch gets perf??ormance stabilizing patch appeared first on Destructoid.

More like "Alan Wii-ke"

Alan Wake (now on the Switch) is psychological horror game about coming to terms with who you are. Many have compared it to Silent Hill 2 for that reason and man??y others, but for me, the ways that it's about internal conflict have always f?elt more unintentional than that.

Throughout the game, the titular Mr. A. Wake is thrown into nightmare situations that are too bad to believe. Likewise, the game's Switch port is technically much, much worse than anyone would have expected.  When it comes to stuff like polygon count, pop-up, frame rate, and just a general sense of jank, this is one of the least polished-looking modern games from a AAA studio I've ever seen. It runs worse than the original 360 ve?rsion d?id in 2010. Heck, it even looks a little cruddier than Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Resident Evil 4 did on the Wii back then.

And I sort of love it for that?

[embed]//twitter.com/GameXplain/status/158317547622633??4720[/embed]

Maybe that's because the internal conflict that's always been key to Alan Wake for me isn't about it's tortured lead character. It's about how the game truly doesn't seem to know if it even wants to be a videogame or not. In my mind it's always been sort of a sister game to Deadly Premonition, another cult classic survival horror game about fighting the same shadowy zombie-type things over and over again in a little American town. The big different between the two is Deadly Premonition a?lways had a reputation for bei??????????????????????????ng so bad-its-good.

Alan Wake, on the other hand, looked technically amazing when it first came out, and so it got rave reviews. That polished look never matched how clunky and laugh-out-loud hammy its story was. Much like with the recent derided re-release of GTA: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition, this worse-looking version of Alan Wake is a much better fit for how I'?ve always felt about it.

Why am I being so hard on Alan Wake you ask? Dear reader, you have to understand: The first words you hear after booting it up the are literally "Stephen King", and it doesn't let up from there. There are a few aspects of the game that seem more inspired by The Twilight Zone or Twin Peaks, but by and large, this is a game that desper??ately wishes it was either a movie, a bo?ok, or both by the world's most popular horror author. It features more references to King's work than I would ever want to count.

The premise itself is essentially a weird cover song of Misery, The Dark Half, with bits of other King novels like Christine peppered throughout. And that's O??K! The problem is the complete lack of subtlety. The copying of King is so loud and strong that it makes the game m??ore like a parody of the author more than anything else.

Spoilers: in the first couple of hours, the game features a cut scene that copies an iconic shot from Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining. Then, as if that weren't enough to take you out of the game and make you think about a much better thing you could be watching than the game you are currently watching, the narrator then blurts out something like "this guy is like Jack Nicholson from The Shining!" This probably wasn't supposed to be funny, but I still laughed out loud, and a big part of me hopes that was the inte??ntion.

Games that try this hard to be like movies are now like the 3rd or 4th most dominant genre in the industry, way behind stuff like Minecraft, Genshin Impact, and even Mario Kart. That wasn't true when Alan Wake was first released though. Back in the 2010's, games t??hat tried hard to be movies won all the awards and made a bulk of the money. It was a scary time for people like me who saw the move to make games more like films as a self-loathi??ng near-suicidal downgrade.

And even if I did like movies more than games, and therefore wanted to see games turn into movies, games are just always worse than movies at being movies! Alan Wake is definitely no exception. It feels much more like a Junior High School theater adaptation of a Stephen King movie than a big budget film. It's cute and earnest, but if there was any reason to think it might someday replace the real deal, y?ou'd probably want to see it put out to pasture.

So not only does this technically worse port of the game serve to humble Alan Wake a bit, it also give the whole thing a little of that dingy, broken and unsafe feeling you might get from one of Puppet Combo's Indie Horror titles. Underneath all the heavy-handed narration and obvious aspirations to be "more than a game", Alan Wake is actually a pretty fun game, ?and having worse graphics doesn't c?hange that.

The main mechanic that makes it stand out is the need shine a light on most enemies before you can damage them. It's dark as hell most of the t?ime so you need the flashlight for more than just self defense. When the game finally quits shoving heavy-handed narration, in-game collectable book pages that actually spoil the story for you(!), and uncanny valley packed cinemas, it's actually a really effective survival horror game, and the low-fi aesthetic doesn't hurt that one bit.

There're also a lot of little touches here that remind you that, in 2010, Alan Wake was actually a huge big budget game. The soundtrack is, in short, bananas;  featuring Roy Orbirson, Poe, and Nick Cave. It's extremely off-putting to see the game go from looking like a PS2 title to sounding like one of the greatest melancholy pop-songs of all time. The sound design and in-game TV show called Night Springs both also carried over perfectly from the 360 original, ??and both do so much to suddenly make the game's world feel real. The contrast between those roots in reality and the purely surreal, game world you're trapped in it when you play makes both feel stronger by juxtaposition.

When it was first released, Alan Wake looked like something from the future, like they had someone make a game from 2022 in 2010. Now on Switch, it looks like a low budget game from 2010, unearthed for the first time 2022. It's seems to be actively repulsive and hostile to people who loved it the first time around, but if you're someone like me who actually likes crappy?? looking games, you may enjoy this Switch port. So if you want to take the chance, saddle up for a down-port that you can sincerely love, and love to laugh at, nearly at the same time.

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Take the writer's eerie tale on the go

Just in time for the scary season, Alan Wake gets a new portable form. Alan Wake Remastered is out today, October 20, for the Nintendo Swit?ch.

The listing is currently live on the eShop and going for $29.99, with a launch discount br?inging it down to $23.99 right now.

Nintendo Switch's version of the remaster contains all the content, including the base game and both The Signal and The Writer story expansions.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=PORiCbyWAM4

Notably, it runs on the Nintendo Switch too. Unlike some other modern games that have made their way to Nintendo's handheld recently, Alan Wake Remastered is not a cloud app, but seems to? run right off the Switch hardware.

The writer will go portable

It's an impressive feat, and makes me a bit interested to see how the remaster holds up on Switch. Alan Wake Remastered was no visual slouch when it first released for other platforms.

That said, developers have been working some real technical magic with the Nintendo Switch lately. Just look at ports like NieR: Automata's Switch version. As the yea??rs have gone on, it's impressive what some have accomplished?.

We'll see if Alan Wake Remastered also stands up as a port, but as a game, it's certainly held its following. Heck, it's well-liked enough to even be tied into Remedy's Control, and get a sequel greenlit for development.

This story of a writer fighting the dark with a flashlight seems to still hold sway. And if you're curious about it and want something eerie to dig into on the go, Alan Wake Remastered is now available for that on the Nintendo Switch.

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Alan Wake 2 is still deep in development

Today marks the 12th anniversary of Alan Wake, and Remedy released a little bit of news to celebrate. Alongside updates on Alan's TV and sequel prospects, Remedy also confirmed that Alan Wake Remastered is coming to Nintendo Switch this fall.

In a new video, Creative Director Sam Lake confirms the dark adventure is coming to Nintendo's handheld sometime this fall. No date's been locked down yet. But in a press release, Remedy says Alan Wake Remastered will be a digital-only release, run??ning natively on ??the hardware. More is on the way in the coming months.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zoI3Egf-IQ

Remedy also provided an update on Alan Wake 2. The recently revealed sequel to 2010's Alan Wake is in development, and Lake says everything is going well, even that ?a "great deal" of the game is playable. But the studio and publisher Epic Games determined that they won't be showing anything "big" this summer.

"To create a proper, polished?? demo or a trailer takes a lot of effort, and it's several months of work that could take away from development," said Lake. "We feel that we have momentum going, and we want to make sure we are creating the best, and first, survival horror game for Remedy. We don't want to take the team away from that focus, so we're? going to keep going and making a great game experience, and unfortunately, you'll have to wait a bit longer for a demo and trailer."

Light up the night

The team did, however, release some concept art for Alan Wake 2 to give a sense of the vibe they're working on. It certain?ly does look scary.

Alan Wake 2 is still aiming for a 2023 launch. One more update came in for the world of Alan Wake, too. Plans are still in the works for an Alan Wake TV show, but today, Remedy confirms that AMC Networks has bought the rights for the Alan Wake series.

Things are still progressing, but dang, it seems like a good time to be an Alan Wake follower. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more about how well Alan Wake Remastered runs natively on Switch as we head into the fall.

The post Alan Wake Remastered is comin?g to Nintendo Switch this fall appeared first on Destructoid.

Give me the melodrama

Melting candles, dark, cobwebbed corners, crimson blood stained on white lace �aesthetically, gothic horror is one of my favorite genres out there. Staples of gothic horror include anything as broad as a suspenseful, mysterious atmosphere, prophecies, and intense emotion, to the specifics of a castle setting, a damsel in distress, and s??tormy weather, just to name a few.

Before gothic horror became a whole aesthetic, inspiring media from every form, it had its humble beginnings in literature. The genre originally got its start from a short story called The Castle of Otranto, which was subtitled A Gothic Story. From there, we got the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, just to name a few.

The number of games that fall neatly into the gothic horror genre is surprisingly and disappointingly small. In the mainstream, the only games I can think of that fit into this category are Bloodborne, Darkest Dungeon, Castlevania, and Vampire: The Masquerade. I bet there are some smaller indie games that are up to snuff, but they're not well-known enough to really solidify gothic horror's place in the mainstream gaming market. I'm not even sure that that last one entirely counts, because it was a? tabletop game first.

There are plenty of games out there that are tangential to the true vein of gothic horror like the Diablo series, which I'd consider to be more of a gothic-fantasy hybrid. Then you have beloved series like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, both of which I would say borrow from gothic horror, but the distinction there is that those games are more aligned with eastern horror conventions, while gothic horror relies more heavily on western tropes and imagery. I would argue that games like Kentucky Route Zero, Alan Wake, and the yet-to-be-released NORCO do a great job of representing the American gothic subgenr?e.

There's even a game like Dream Daddy, where the eccentric romanceable NPC Damien became a fan-favorite representation of a gothic vampire. To me, he's a great example of how gothic horror can integrate well into today's pop culture, which is honestly a really cool idea and something I want to see m??ore of.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, and maybe this whole conversation seems pointless to you, but as someone who is incredibly fond of the aesthetic associated with gothic horror, I think we're really missing out on some cool games here. While horror is part of the name, gothic horror isn't outright about scaring the crap out of you �instead, it often dives deep into topics of mortality, despair, and regret, and so on, which makes it rife with potential to tell really compelling, albeit dark, stories within a highly stylized framework.

I want to see a community sim inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, where you manage a cursed old home as the last surviving member of a once prestigious family. I want a dating sim with dark, mysterious suitors inspired by the likes of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I guess you can just file this article into my ever-growing category of trying to manifest my gaming fantasies. At the end of the day, I see a whole lot of unused potentia??l, and I want ?to start a conversation about the hypothetical games of my dreams that I could be playing this Halloween.

Story Beat is a weekly column discussing anything and everything to do with storytelling in video games.

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Jesse's got heart, man

I feel obligated to approach this review from two angles. First and foremost, it's a review of a Control expansion. That's the obvious angle. You're here to find out how this DLC serves as a supplemental story to Control.

But, let's be real, you want to know about the Alan Wake stuff. You want to know how Remedy brought Bright Falls to The Oldest House, and you want to know if this is the triumphant return of everyone's favorite tortured writer after he had gone AFK for the better part of a decade. You've been building it up in your head for so long, and you just want to know if AWE makes good on the mental buildup.

AWE doesn't fully deliver on either front. It's a bit of a mishmash of ideas -- albeit an understandable one -- that prevents this expansion from being what everyone wants it to be. It'??s still pretty incredible, though.

Control: AWE (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: 505 Games
Release: August 27, 2020
MSRP: $14.99 individually, $24.99 for the season pass which also includes the Foundation expansion (review)

Control: AWE is Remedy's first sincere and ambitious attempt at tying strings together in the Remedy Connected Universe, at least in a way that's more official than just a wink toward the fans. For the debut, we see that Remedy isn't just slapping some source material into another game and building on the canon. It's actually importing themes and atmosphere. AWE wildly changes how Control feels.

AWE channels Alan Wake in spirit and tone. The expansion is more aligned with a tense horror game than Control's action-first sensibilities. The motif running through AWE is the battle of light-versus-dark and goo??d-versus-evil. Avoiding ??the darkness and shining lights on enemies are both central mechanics.

Remedy shows an admirable degree of flexibility here, but it comes at the cost of some things that make Control special on its own. AWE is notably more linear than the metroidvania-like main campaign, as most of this new Investigations sector of The Oldest House is a one-way trip through each area that branches off from the main hub. There isn't much opportunity to explore. More criminally, there aren't any real standout side missions. AWE ?rushes to say its piece before diving back into the proverbial lake. (Okay, that metaphor was a stretch.)

That's not to say AWE doesn't accomplish its main objective. Remedy uses this DLC as a chance to frame some of Alan Wake's lore and persistent mysteries within the context of Control's world. This is expertly done, removing some of the question marks but preserving the intrigue. SCP Foundation stories are built on the idea of presenting circumstances and details without ever really elaborating on the how or why. Remedy excels at mimicking this formula, showing enough restraint to only stoke the fire of curiosity. AWE ends with plenty of questions ?still simme?ring.

Which is precisely why some people will feel unfulfilled with AWE's approach. It's important to remember that this isn't a full-blown Alan Wake story. It's a story about Alan Wake being told through the lens of Control. Any Remedy fan should end up liking AWE p?rovided the?y go in with the proper expectation about what the studio wanted for this content.

I finished AWE with a yearning for more Alan Wake and a yearning for more Control. Remedy has more or less confirmed we'll get more of both at some point in the future, although they might be presented through the lens of yet another series. That's the reality of the Remedy Connected Universe. As a trial run, AWE manages to be a great double-dip on some beloved narratives, even though it's not necessarily a great representation of either Control or Alan Wake individually. Sometimes the sum is gre?ater than the parts, sometimes the lake is really an ocean.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Have it your way

Control is about to get easier for everyone, and much easier for anyone who wants it. The highly-anticipated Alan Wake-themed AWE expansion releases in l??ess than two weeks, and it'll be accompanied by a fre??e update that makes the game much more accessible.

One of the most rampant complaints about Control was the punitive checkpoi?nting. Long, difficult boss encounters have to be one-shotted, as there are no mid-fight saves. Adding insult to injury, dying and retrying often requires a protracted jaunt all the way back to the boss.

Remedy's addressing that specific complaint in the August update. During yesterday's AWE livestream, the developer detailed how it's making Control a breezier experience. One example is that new control points are being added in the game's toughest story missions a??nd closer to certain boss fights. There are also "soft checkpoints"? in some missions, although Remedy stopped short of confirming they're a way of breaking up boss fights.

That's the stuff that will affect everybody. However, there's a new suite of accessibility options called "Assist Mode" which is a set of game features that can be enabled or disabled separate from one another in the options menu. Remedy says "Assist mode lets you modify the rules of the game to suit your specific needs. It's important to us that as many people as possible get to experience Control the way they want."

Assist mode can be tweaked to your heart's content. Remedy gives you control over how much damage Jesse deals, how much damage she takes, and how quickly energy and ammo reload. If you really don't feel like dealing with any difficulty at all, you can just turn off dying altogether. That's right -- Remedy has taken Control from a reasonably difficult game (that some people bounced off of because the learning?????????????????????????? curve is a bit steep) to one where failure is a toggl?e button.

As for new abilities, Jesse'??s getting her Launch souped-up. Now, she has Multi-Launch which can throw three objects at once. It sounds pretty powerful, b?ut nowhere near as powerful as Alan Wake's bright-ass flashlight.

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'This is just a humble beginning'

Remedy has linked the events in Alan Wake to the events in Control. That was a nice little easter egg to discover a year ago, an adoring wink at all the longtime Remedy fans. And, as we've known for a while now, that was the origin of a dedicated Alan Wake-themed DLC in Control, which is due out at the end of this month.

That's not the end. It??'s just the start. This is deeper than a lake, it's an ocean.

Remedy creative director Sam Lake has given an update about the direction of the studio's future games, introducing a concept called the Remedy Connected Universe. Basically, Remedy has been connecting the dots all these years, finding ways to write its stories into one another. "Each game is a standalone experience, but each game is also a doorway into a larger universe with exciti?ng opportunities for crossover events," Lake says.

The upcoming AWE expansion is the first official crossover. After that, it seems as though Lake wants all of the developer's singleplayer narratives to coexist. Remedy is already working on the next game (which is reported to ?be a smaller project) that will fit into the Remedy Connected Universe framework.

So, we're going to see more Control and more Alan Wake and maybe even more Quantum Break popping up in future Remedy games. Max Payne is probably a no-go since Rockstar owns it. But it's fantastic to hear that we'll get more lore from the stories we love while Remedy is a??lso free to craft new characters and narratives. 

AWE: The first Remed??y Connected Universe crossover event [Remedy Games]

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Get it? Library because books

Ten years ago, Remedy Entertainment gave us one of the finest examples of video game storytelling, a Stephe??n King-like thriller drenched in David Lynch-l??ike surrealism. Unlike books or film, video games usually show their age a decade later. However, this game still stands tall as a beloved cult classic because of its impeccable approach to narrative and atmosphere.

Alan Wake turns 10 today, which is sure to have many of you (myself included) thinking "Goddamn, has 10 years really flown by that fast?" It has, but there's a new opportunity to play Alan Wake for anyone who's feeling all nostalgic. Alan Wake will be added to Game Pass for both Xbox and PC on May 21. It's playable on Xbox One through Xbox 360 backward compatibility. (And, if Game Pass isn't your thing, Alan Wake is only $1.50 on Steam right now.)

Alan Wake will be available with @XboxGamePass and @XboxGamePassPC from May 21st.

Happy 10 year anniversary! #10yearsofAlanWake pic.twitter.com/MGsbYwz3DM

— Remedy Entertainment (@remedygames) May 14, 2020

There has been a lot made of Alan Wake over the past decade -- how it's regarded as a masterclass in video game storytelling, how it took forever to make, how Remedy just won't give us a proper sequel even though we want it so so bad -- but an overlooked angle is how it launched among an absolute murderer's row of now-classic games. In May 2010 alone, Skate 3, Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 all released. Launching on the same day as Red Dead Redemption did Remedy no favors.

The good news (great news, even) is that there's more Alan Wake on the horizon. The upcoming Control add-on AWE seems to dive into the events at Bright Falls. From there, who knows. But Remedy is well-aware that people would very much like another Alan Wake game.

The post Alan Wake and his bright-ass flashli?ght join the X?box and PC Game Pass library next week appeared first on Destructoid.

Observer too

We've fallen into something of a weekly routine here. As ??long as Epic keeps giving away free games every week, we're gonna keep writing about them??.

Last week, I feigned enthusiasm for Surviving Mars (Ha, you were deceived!), a Paradox-published city builder about colonizing Mars. This week, the enthusiasm is real -- and you have my word that I won't pop back up next Thursday to tell you that you were tricked again. Remedy's Alan Wake's American Nightmare is free on the Ep??????????????????????????ic Games Store this week, and that's a game t?hat I wholeheartedly recommend.

There's more! If American Nightmare's surreal dreamscape time loop isn't your thing, Bloober Team's cyberpunk brain-infiltrating horror game Observer is also free. Two titles with no shortage of complimen??ts paid their way, right in time for Hal??loween too.

Of course, you have until October 24 to claim these two games for your library. Next up: QUBE 2 and Layers of Fear.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Observer [Epic Games Store]

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I have a hard enough time Surviving Earth

Time to file another story to "Free games that are actually good, and you should probably queue them up now even if you don't have time t??o play them because maybe you'll want to get to them someday." Wordy tag!

The free game of the week on the Epic Games Store is Surviving Mars, the Paradox-published 2018 city builder about colonizing Mars. Additionally, the Space Race add-on is also free. Go spend some time on the fourth rock from the sun. Here's where you can pick it up.

Next week, Epic leans into the Halloween spirit. Both Alan Wake's American Nightmare and Observer will be free. Perfect games for this time of year. Plus, it gives anyone who just got done with Control a great excuse to revisit some of Remedy's olde?r stuff.

Surviving Mars [Epic Games Store]

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Always keep a flare gun handy

Remedy's surreal novelist nightmare Alan Wake and Ubisoft's melee multiplayer title For Honor are this week's free PC games on the Epic Games Store. If you're down, you have? until August 9 to claim them.

For Honor is now on Year 3 Season 3 – and more power to it for hanging in there for so long – but I'm here for Remedy's pride and joy. ??Can you believe it's been nine?? years since its Xbox 360 release?

Alan Wake is thankfully back in the studio's control, and while a sequel still hasn't come to fruition, I'll never give up hope. With any luck, free giveaways like this will be the extra push some folks need to check out this spooky Stephen King-inspired Pacific Northwest thriller (or at least remind the??ir friends). The bigger the audience, the more likely we are to one day get a foll?ow-up. That's my hope!

Next week, Epic plans to give out free copies of GNOG, a charming puzzle-box adventure.

The post The latest Epic ?Games Store freebies are Alan Wake?? and For Honor appeared first on Destructoid.

'Nice,' is the best way to sum this up

Alan Wake has been one of those memorable series ever since it exploded on the scene on the Xbox 360 in 2??010.

Serving as one of the most killer Xbox exclusives, the thriller managed to subvert a lot of player's expectations and is now cemented as one of the best games in Remedy's?? history. So how are they doing in 2019? Remedy submitted an earnings report earlier today, and things are looking good for the company and? for us.

As Remedy notes in the report: "For its first half-year period of 2019, Remedy Entertainment Plc records approximately 2.5 million euros of royalties from previously released games as one-time income. The royalties are paid to Remedy during the second half-year period of 2019. In relation to this, the publishing rights of Alan Wake games are rever??ted to Remedy. This one-time income does not significantly affect Remedy’s full year result, because as previously reported, the Company continues to invest in developing new games, the success of which have a greater impact on the Company’s full year revenue and result."

Did you catch it? I highlighted it for you anyway, so you probably can't miss it. Remedy now has the rights to the Alan Wake series, meaning they could bring it anywhere in the future. Although they have worked heavily with Microsoft in the past they have ventured into the PC platform, and partnered with Rockstar to bring the Max Payne series to the PlayStation platform. Their newest game, Control, is also coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

We haven't gotten an Alan Wake ??;game since 2012, but that may ch??ange sooner than later.

Remedy records 2.5 million euros of one-time royalty?? income from previously released games [Global News Wire]

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He's still not awake

Anytime there's buzz about a new game from Remedy Entertainment, everyone hopes for the exact same thing: A full-fledged, big budget Alan Wake sequel. Remedy dabbled in Alan Wake side stories with the fever dream-like Alan Wake's American Nightmare, but there has been no movement on a prop?er continuation of Wake's story.

Remedy knows how beloved Alan Wake is, and the studio admits it tried to work on a sequel. In an interview with VG247 at PAX East, Remedy's Thomas Puha says "We were working on Alan Wake 2 years ago and it just didn't pan out, so there's nothing. We're just booked solid for the next couple of years, really. We do own the Alan Wake [property] but it's never quite as simple as that, but yeah, we d??o own it."

Puha doesn't elaborate as to why the sequel was scrapped. Maybe the writers were struggling to find an angle that warranted another game; maybe the designers couldn't work out a gameplay hook that'd differentiate it enough from the first game. Or, maybe Remedy got to the pitching process and couldn't find a publisher that seemed like a good fit. Whatever the reas?on, it's probably slightly less frustrating to know Remedy tried and couldn't make it work, rather than our years-long assumption that Remedy never tried at all.

"We were wo?rking on Alan Wake 2 years ago and it?? just didn't pan out" -- Remedy [VG247]

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Licensing issues all sorted out

In May 2017, Alan Wake was taken off digital storefronts. Remedy's 2010 thriller had expiring music licenses that Microsoft couldn't re-up. As such, Alan Wake was pulled from?? PC stores (such as Steam and Humble) and the Xbox store.

In a new surprising twist, Alan Wake sees the light of day again. Microsoft has managed to re-license that music, meaning the game can once again be sold. It's already on Steam at a sale price of $3. GOG has the same deal. An Xbox listing is presumably coming soon. Alan Wake, once gone, is back.

And what a perfectly appropriate time for Alan Wake to reappear. Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption are forever inextricably linked because they both launched on May 18, 2010. Red Dead most certainly cannibalized a good chunk of Alan Wake's prospective sales. Now, on the eve of Red Dead Redemption 2's launch, Alan Wake is? again in our lives. History is doomed to repeat itself, time is a flat ?circle.

@RemedyGames [Twitter]

The post Alan Wake is back on Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

For more than a New York minute

Remedy's upcoming sci-fi shooter Control will feature the talents of Max Payne and Alan Wake's lead actors. Both James McCaffrey (Max) and Matthew Porretta (Alan) will be featured in roles that play alongside that of the main character. The news was confirmed in a new developer diary for Control which features McCaffrey talking extensively about his role in the game. Porretta gets a teas?e at the end, which possibly hints at his nefarious role.

Alan Wake and Max Payne’s voice actors are going to appear in Remedy’s next game, Control [VG 24/7]

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Took them long enough

Alan Wake fans rejoice! Earlier today, it was announced that Alan Wake is going to be adapted into a television series with Sam Lake, the original creator heavily involved in the production of the live-action series as its executive producer. Peter Calloway (Cloak & Dagger, Legion) will be the showrunner of the serie??s, while Remedy Enter??tainment and Contradiction Films will be involved in the production of the series. Lake is currently working on a pitch and will be shopping it to various networks in October, so we may not have to wait long before we hear more news about the series. 

Alan Wake earned a massive cult following when it originally launched in May of 2010 and fans have been clamoring for a sequel ever seen. They got a spin-off in American Nightmare, but that was about it. There were plans to make a sequel to the game, but those quickly fell through. And before anyone asks about what the TV show will be about, it's planning on adapting the entire game, but if the show proves to be a hit, Lake is adamant about using his script for Alan Wake 2 for future seasons. 

The message is pretty clear. If you want Alan Wake 2, watch the show, if and when it airs. The only aspect about this that concerns me is the production company, Contradiction Films. They haven't done that much besides Mortal Kombat: Legacy and the two Dead Rising movies, which I had never heard about until writing this because they were on Crackle. Is Crackle even still a thing? Regardless, most of their output seems pretty mundane, but hopefully they can do justice to Alan Wake and Sam Lake's precious baby. 

Peter Calloway To Adapt 'Alan Wake' For? Television [Variety]

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Hopefully it's Alan Wake 2

It's been a few years since Quantum Break came out, so obviously Remedy has been hard at work on something. We already knew the developer was making the single-player portion of the free-to-play shooter CrossFire 2, but what of its untitled seventh project, P7? According to a recent financial statement for 2017, Remedy has stated the game is targeting a 2019 release dat??e.

The very dry report states, "Our other game project, project P7 that is being done with 505 Games S.p.A., proceeded from the pre-??production phase to the production phase at the beginning of the period under review. The development of the game has progressed according to our plans. P7 is expected to be released during 2019."

That doesn't mean this is a guaranteed date, but with this news, I'm sure we'll see something of the title at E3 this year. I'm hoping we can finally get the long awaited Alan Wake 2, but this may end up being an original IP (which wouldn't be bad at all). What is very intriguing is the final paragraph of the statement, which reveals another project is? in the works.

"One of the projects is the company’s own game brand codenamed P7," reads the report, "in which the company’s own financing plays a significant role. At the same time, the company will launch a third game project." Maybe that is the Alan Wake continuation we've all been dying for. It could also be Quantum Break 2, though I'm not su??re Rem?edy has the money to create that on its own.

Whatever the case, 2018 is going to be a very pr??oductive year for the studio. I've enjoyed all of its games and am always eager to see what Sam Lake comes up with, so I hope everything can go without a hitch.

Remedy’s P7?? To Launch in 2?019; A New Game Project Will Be Started This Year [WCCFTech]

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It's always the same

Seated in a Krakow convention center last week to watch Remedy Entertainment's creative director Sam Lake give a presentation on unifying themes, the audience was treated to something it certainly didn't expect: A partial striptease. Lake got down to his undershirt to cosplay as Max Payne while talking about that game; he did the same thing while discussing Alan Wake.

There's a reason Lake does this, more than for sheer entertainment value (although that definitely plays a role too). He's about to dissect each of Remedy's past titles, minus Death Rally, in a way that explains how they all have character-centric stories; how all these video games take another medium's structure; and how they all blur the in-game realities. These wardrobe changes are a meta play on that last one. Lake's blurring? the lines of his presentation by dressing up as the characters he's discussing.

It's a fascinating talk, one that we'll probably post when the Digital Dragons organizers upload it to YouTube. It's particularly interesting because it points out all the ways that Remedy's games have the exact same pillars every single time. Lake starts with the big one: "We want to create iconic characters. Our bar has always been in as high-quality characters and stories as we can make. Because we make action games, the motifs and conflicts of these characters are the springboard for action. Heightened, exaggerated and we always bring a layer of genre elements as we allow to explore different genres -- pulp ??fiction or supernatural elements or science fiction," he says.

Lake continues "The question is 'Within the action game framework, how do you create a character-centric story?' Obviously there are some problems there because, there is a lot of noise and a lot of explosions and a lot of shooting, and the character can get lost very easily in that. It's all about the character in every possible way. Usually we start with the name and the name of the game is the name of the character is the theme of th?e story."

One way that Remedy excels at keeping the focus on the character is by creating worlds that are seen through the eyes of the protagonist. "It comes down to the point of view of the character, and the point of narration is one ??tool we use for this," Lake says. "It means that when you experience the game and the game world, you are not exactly experiencing the world itself, you are experiencing the version of the world that the character sees. It all goes through the point of view of the main character." So the terrible snowstorm in New York City might be exaggerated because it's a manifestation of Max Payne's ??inner conflict brought out into the external world.

And, most often, these conflicts are recurring through Remedy's works. Lake explains "Now, when it's about character, then obviously the themes need to be very personal for the character. For me, it has always been about the question of what is the most personal up-close thing about the character. For me, it's about family. And because it's an action game, there needs to be conflict and drama, so it??????????????????????????'s about a broken family. If you think about life from this perspective, everyone wants to be with their loved ones, but our hero is ultimately on this journey on his own."

Max Payne is saddled with extreme guilt and sadness over the death of his wife. Alan Wake feels the same over a failing marriage. Quantum Break's Jack Joyce goes through the who?le "If I could only go back and change things and undo mistakes" mindset while trying to save his brother, the only family he has left. At their cores, these games? are all the same.

Apart from characters and their motivations, Lake also spent a good amount of time outlining how each video game draws from other entertainment. Max Payne is a comic book with a three-act movie structure. Alan Wake is a novel. Quantum Break leans into this completely and actually is half TV show. "To me, it's been a logical journey in the sense that all these different mediums play a role in our ki??nd of fragmented life. With that, it fee?ls like a natural way to bring these into the fictional world that we create. I've always felt with games that you can make your own rules in a way and kind of try different things out," Lake comments.

This presentation was very much focused on Remedy's past, but time is a flat circle. The way Lake spoke about everything, it made you realize that this wasn't a??n analysis of the studio's works, but rather an identification of the studio's earmarks. These are the things Remedy holds sacred, and then it finds creative wiggle room within that structure.

Lake ended the presentation by saying that he couldn't talk about Remedy's next game which is currently codenamed P7. No one expected him to. Digital Dragons isn't the sort of place where that kind of reveal happens. But, in a way, he let us know the direction it's probably headed. When P7 is formally announced, don't be surprised if it's a characte??r-centric action game, with themes of guilt and broken family, that draws inspiration from other mediums, and that blurs the lines of its own reality. It doesn't feel like such a leap when you realize that's all Remedy has been doing since 2001.

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