Well, this is nice. Remedy's exceptionally good horror game Alan Wake 2 is finally making royalties for the studio for the first time since its release in late 2023, after shifting over 2 million copies. The jubilant news comes from Remedy latest financial report, as spotted by VG247.
As of September last year, the musical-with-guns had "recouped most of its development and marketing expenses", but still wasn't quite in the green. Since then, they've released both The Lake House expansion and physical console editions, which appear to have done the trick. "October saw particularly high activity around Alan Wake 2," says the report.
While I can't definitely say that my own personal word of mouth campaign has helped matters, I did use my best carving knife to write 'Play Alan Wake 2' into all those mangoes I chucked at people in Cardiff town centre, so who's to say who the real Sam Lake is here?
Elsewhere in the report, Remedy provided updates on their projects in progress, namely FBC: Firebreak, "Action RPG" Control 2, and their Max Payne 1 & 2 remasters. In short: yep, still cooking. Firebreak should be out this year, and Control 2 is just gearing up to enter full production. There was some walkout chaos at Annapurna Interactive last year, but this doesn't seem to have slowed down the deal made between them and Remedy.
Max is "making steady progress in full production", too. Love a bit of Max. "It's the best blend of goofy and ridiculous," celebrated Alice Bell (RPS in peace) for the original's 20th birthday. "The writing also contains lines like, "The sun set with practiced bravado", which is absolutely incredible. And you can listen in to the idle bitching of your enemies before you round the corner and they notice you, at which point someone will yell, "IT'S PAYNE!" just before you drop into slow motion and watch bullets drift gently past you."
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