Remedy has revealed that Alan Wake 2 is very close to breaking across the profit line.
As reported by Game Developer. Remedy Entertainment CEO Tero Virtala made this statement to shareholders:
“At the end of the quarter, Alan Wake 2 had recouped most of its development and marketing expenses. After the end of the quarter, the second expansion of Alan Wake 2, The Lake House, was released on October 22 alongside the Physical Deluxe Edition of the game.”
This is a welcome update, as in the last financial quarterly meeting, Virtala revealed that Alan Wake 2 did not make enough money to generate royalties yet. Given the title’s history, it’s been a huge disappointment.
Alan Wake 2, of course, is one of those highly anticipated titles that we thought would never happen. Remedy had ceded control of the Alan Wake franchise to Microsoft, and seemed to have moved on to other projects with other publishers.
In a seemingly unlikely set of circumstances, Remedy convinced Microsoft to sell the Alan Wake franchise back to them, and confirmed that they would be making this dream game in 2021, eleven years after the release of the original Alan Wake.
After all that effort, Alan Wake 2 ran headlong into an entirely new and unexpected controversy. Because Remedy made a publishing deal with Epic Game Store, Epic was not interested in publishing the game on physical media.
They eventually acquiesced on this stand, with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S disc versions coming last October 22. A Limited Collector’s Edition is also still to come this December. As we pointed out, their questionable choice of physical media provider in Limited Run Games guarantees that only a small portion of their player base gets to choose this option, but they can at least say they did it.
In any case, at least they broke through in paying their development and marketing costs before October came in. Virtala also shared some updates on their other projects, though there really isn’t a whole lot that has changed.
Control 2 is still in production readiness stage, with full production starting next year. The Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes and FBC Firebreak, FKA Project Condor, are also still in development, but none of these games are farther along to even have a release date.
Virtala also pitched their deals with Annapurna and TenCent as positives, that allow Remedy to retain creative control. We certainly hope this all works out for them, but as for now, they’re still working towards success.
