THQ Nordic gave a big vote of confidence to physical game editions by publicly offering to publish one such version ofAlan Wake 2. This unconventional proposal emerged shortly afterAlan Wake 2was treated to a new gameplay trailerat this week’s PlayStation Showcase.While Sony’s May 24 event received a mixed response from the fandom,Alan Wake 2was one of the third-party highlights of the show. That’s largely because its trailer not only featured plenty of gameplay, but also ended with an official release date, thus delivering two things that the broadcast was otherwise fairly light on. The pre-orders for the game went live shortly afterward, along with a new FAQ page that somewhat detracted from the excitement by revealing that Remedy Entertainment made thecontroversial choice to only releaseAlan Wake 2digitally.RELATED:THQ Nordic is Housing Ukraine War RefugeesTHQ Nordic has subsequently taken online to posit that there are still “plenty” of people who prefer their game purchases to be tangible, adding that it would hence “love” to put out a physical version ofAlan Wake 2. Seeing how the Austrian publisher already handled the physical release ofAlan Wakefor PC, it’s not opposed to the idea of going “full circle,” a company representative wrote on Twitter.
Since AAA publishing deals aren’t typically initiated via tweets, it’s likely that THQ Nordic’s proposal is merely a case of a company seizing an opportunity for some good publicity. That’s not to say the offer wasn’t sincere, just that the publisher would have likely used different channels to pitch this idea to Remedy Entertainment if it truly believed there’s a chance for it to handle the physical release ofAlan Wake 2. And while the fans thus shouldn’t hold their breath for this deal to materialize, stranger things have happened in the genre, as recently underlined by thephysical release of obscure indie survival horrorSignalis.
Remedy Entertainment said the decision to makeAlan Wake 2a digital-only launch was informed by “many reasons,” of which it named three, the first one beingthe substantial decline in physical game salesthe world over. The Espoo, Finland-based studio also said that doing away with a disc release helped lower its overhead, with some of those savings ultimately being passed on to consumers. For context, the console edition ofAlan Wake 2will retail at $59.99, while the PC version will be $10 cheaper. In an era of $70 games being a common sight on the store shelves, those are some fairly sensible figures for a AAA game.
Remedy also suggested it considered a compromise between the two formats in the vein of a boxed copy ofAlan Wake 2that would have required an additional download to play. However, it decided against this distribution model after concluding such a move would deliver a suboptimal consumer experience, as per the game’s official FAQ page.
Alan Wake 2launches October 17 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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