Translation: Original comment published in Finnish on 5/25/2023 at 8:42 am.
Remedy and Epic Games announced a brand new trailer for Alan Wake 2 at Wednesday's Playstation Showcase event and that the game will be released on Tuesday October 17, 2023. More information about the game can be found in Remedy's press release and on Alan Wake’s website, where the game is also available for pre-order. Based on a quick review, initial reactions to the trailer from players on social media seem largely positive.
Release date very close to our projections
In our projections, we had scheduled the release at the end of September, so the official release date is now very much in line with this. Based on our current assumptions, the game would have to sell roughly 2 million copies before recouping the production and marketing budget funded by Epic. After that, the companies split the net proceeds of the game in half. For now, we expect the game to start generating royalties for Remedy from Q2'24, but the actual outcome could be affected by many variables, both good and bad. We have discussed our assumptions in more detail in our latest Q1 update.
Alan Wake 2 will be a digital-only game
An interesting observation about the release news is that Alan Wake 2 will only be released as a digital version. This allows the initial selling price of the game to be kept a notch lower than many other games developed for the new generation of consoles, as the cost of producing and distributing physical copies of the game is eliminated. On the Epic Store, for example, the price of the standard version of the game appears to be roughly 50 euros. On the PlayStation Store, the prices for the standard version and the deluxe version, which includes future expansions, are roughly 60 euros and 80 euros, respectively.
The lack of physical copies is likely to cause annoyance among some game enthusiasts who collect game boxes. In the big picture, the importance of physical copies for game sales has declined dramatically over the last 5 years. Given this trend and the cost savings to be made, the decision is very understandable.