Video game actor James McCaffrey, whose roles included the iconic voice of Max Payne and Alex Casey in this year’s Alan Wake 2, has passed away.
]]>Who had ‘playable remake of Alan Wake inside Fortnite’ on their 2023 bingo card? Nobody? Well, nevermind: either way, you can now relive the events of Remedy’s battery-powered horror game before its sequel comes out later this month.
]]>Alan Wake 2 outfit Remedy Entertainment have "always" felt pressured to make their games longer, creative director Sam Lake has observed in a new interview which also picks apart the differences between the forthcoming midwestern spookalot, out this October, and the 2010 original. Lake added that, Remedy's sense of audience expectations notwithstanding, he himself has difficulty setting aside hours for longer games. "[It's] just struggling with finding time and you know, being interested in a story, wanting to see it through," he said. "So it can even be daunting at times to start playing a game that you know is really, really long."
]]>After making their name with Max Payne's joyous gun bonanzas, Remedy Entertainment now seem pretty over guns but can never quite hang up their holsters. I've been playing Quantum Break since it arrived on PC Game Pass, and I'm finding their oft-forgotten time-bending shooter is yet another modern Remedy game full of boring gunfights even as it gives you supernatural powers that could replace guns. Their apparent disinterest in gunfights is especially felt in a game so into telling a story that it ends chapters with TV-length live-action episodes starring actual Lance Reddick. Looking back over their past games, agh, as much as I want spooky investigations, I can't get excited about their next, Alan Wake 2.
]]>In the latest edition of Ask RPS, our new mailbag feature where RPS supporters pose us questions that we then answer in public posts for everyone to enjoy, we're turning our gaze to that loved and loathed staple of the video gaming landscape: achievements. Ah, achievements. Never mind if they're good or bad. Today, we're remembering the terrible things we've done to actually get them.
The question comes courtesy of Fachewachewa, who asked: What's the worst thing you've done for an achievement? Or more generally, a time you were focused on a specific goal in a game, reached it (or gave up), and after, looked back and thought, "Why did I do that?"
Why, indeed. Come and find out which achievements have spawned our biggest gaming regrets, and why not tell us about your own gaming follies in the comments? We can all wallow in our foolishness together.
]]>After teasing the return of horror novelist Alan Wake in Control, at The Game Awards tonight, developers Remedy finally announced a full sequel. Alan Wake 2 is coming in 2023, and this time Remedy say it will be a survival horror game, not an action game. Also, Alan looks a bit like Jake Gyllenhaal now? Check out the trailer below.
]]>Would you pay an extra 14-ish quid for a purely visual touch-up on a game you can already buy with ease? That’s, as Katharine found in her Alan Wake Remastered review, the biggest problem facing Remedy and D3T’s restoration project. It makes a lot of sense for current-gen consoles, which for various reasons might not have always had access to the torch-and-shoot original, but of course us PC lot could well have been playing it yesterday.
]]>Long before Jesse Faden and the denizens of Control were losing their minds over sentient fridges and rubber ducks, Alan Wake was doing unholy battle with possessed logging tractors and combine harvesters. In hindsight, it seems obvious that these two worlds would eventually collide in Remedy's newly established Wake-iverse - such is their shared love of shadowy, flying objects - but back in the dark days of 2010, little did we know that Remedy's tortured horror writer would be making such a big comeback eleven years later.
Well, at least he is over on consoles. While the original Alan Wake had a brief, year-long holiday from Steam in 2017 due to the expiration of its music licences, PC folks have been able to play Remedy's cult classic shooter more or less uninterrupted since its release in 2012. Alan Wake Remastered, however, marks the first time it's ever come to PlayStation (it having been an Xbox console exclusive all these years), and its spruced up character models, higher frame rates and 4K texture packs feel very much intended to get PS4 and PS5 players up to speed on this old-but-new figure in Jesse's life than us on PC. Indeed, when there's still a perfectly good version of Alan Wake sitting right there on Steam for less than half the cost of this new remaster, you're probably better off playing the original than stumping up the cash for this latest nip and polygon tuck.
]]>For a sleepy guy, Alan Wake is moving at high speed. From leaked news of a remaster last week to an official announcement this week to tonight, when we got a first trailer and an imminent release date: October 5th. Watch the trailer below.
]]>All right folks, hands up: who's ever been excited about that hip new video game, only to find their PC's so old and decrepit that simply trying to turn the camera risks smothering your monitor screen with remnants of your leftover lunch? It's something we've probably all experienced over the years as PC games get ever more demanding, but for me, that game was Alan Wake, Remedy's spooky third-person shooter from the bygone era of 2010, and I'd do it all again to play the newly-announced Alan Wake Remastered, too. Would you?
]]>The leaks were true: Remedy Entertainment have announced that the Alan Wake remaster is real, and it's coming out this autumn. The spooky shooter originally came out in 2010, though it didn't hit PC until 2012. Alan Wake Remastered is bringing the mysterious fella back in shiny 4K, along with commentary from creative director Sam Lake.
]]>References to Alan Wake Remastered were discovered among Epic Games Store files back in June (at the same time as Final Fantasy VII Remake references). Now listings for console versions of the horror remaster have been spotted on retailer website Rakuten Taiwan, alongside an October 5th release date.
]]>For some time, fans speculated on whether Control's mentions of Alan Wake were just fun little easter eggs or hints that Remedy's two games are meaningfully set in the same spooky fictional world. Now the studio have confirmed not only that Mr. Wake will appear in Control's next expansion, but that they are already working on a new game set in a little place they're calling the Remedy Connected Universe.
]]>Remedy Entertainment's most recent financial report released today, and while most of it is full of business-y stuff that's not particularly interesting, there are a few juicy tidbits telling us what the studio is working on. One of most exciting things the Control and Max Payne creators mentioned is that they have two brand new games in early development: one they've yet to announce, and another they're calling project Vanguard.
]]>Working with publishers led the the novelist Alan Wake to flip his lid and get chased by ghosts or summat, so Big Al must be thrilled to escape his previous publisher contract. Alan Wake developers Remedy Entertainment have announced they've gained the publishing rights to the third-person spooker-shooters, which were previously held by Microsoft. This self-publishing seems more a happy consequence of old contract conditions rather than a sign that they're planning to make a new one, but it should give them more power to do whatever they dang well please with Al.
]]>While a twist happy ending might undermine a horror story (I'm looking at you, Stephen King), it's a greatly appreciated thing in games right now, and today's pleasant twist: Alan Wake is back. Soundtrack fully intact and only a couple quid right now, too. Remedy's spook'o-shooter was pulled from stores after its music licenses expired - killed by Roy Orbison. Fortunately developers Remedy have manged to wrangle things back together. The game is back on major stores and 80% discounted until Halloween, along with standalone expansion American Nightmare.
]]>Undeterred by Marky Mark's Max Payne movie, Remedy Entertainment are having another crack at turning one of their games into a live-action third-person watcher. This time it's Alan Wake, their 2010 spook-o-shooter about an author who goes out his gourd, loses his wife, writes a novel then forgets about it, and fights shadowy monsters - all while on holiday in a quiet Pacific Northwest town. The TV adaptation is still in its early phases and may not become reality but hey, they're giving it a go.
]]>The Mac Dad will make you jump jump, for, as always, these are the ten games with the most accumulated sales on Steam over the past week. It's an odd old chart this week: the mainstays continue to stay, but random discounts remix things quite a bit.
]]>Remedy Entertainment's third-person spooker Alan Wake [official site] will receive a 90% discount on Steam this weekend, right before it gets pulled from stores - possibly forever. The Max Payne creators says Alan Wake has to go because its music licenses are expiring. Pop songs play at the end of each chapter, see, which means that Alan Wake was killed by a conspiracy including Roy Orbison, Nick Cave (I've always said those mates of his are some real bad seeds!), and David Bowie. If you already own Alan Wake or buy now, you will still get to download and play after it's pulled from sale.
]]>Remedy (Max Payne, Alan Wake) have been making gorgeous, violent games about angry-sad men for years now. When they announced their latest, Quantum Break [official site], it was revealed as an Xbox One exclusive. Moments ago, they announced that the time-troubling action game will also be coming to PCs. As long as those PCs are running Windows 10. There's a proper trailer below, along with a newly released live action thing.
]]>Remedy followed up their spooky-ooky shooter Alan Wake with the shorter, shootier semi-sequel Alan Wake's American Nightmare in 2012. Might a proper sequel, we wondered, follow next?
Well, no. However, Remedy had started prototyping an Alan Wake 2 soon after finishing the first game, and whipped up a fancy gameplay video to pitch to publishers. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet (and a Polygon interview), you can now watch thirteen minutes of the Wake that never was. Some of its ideas, you may notice, were later reused in American Nightmare. But is Alan Wake dead and gone? Oh, you never know, Remedy say.
]]>Do you have between one and infinity dollars? Are you waiting for Alan Wake to be 'bundled' up with the expansion and extra materials, where the costs are distributed between the developers and charity? Those are some very specific conditions you have there. Gaming welcomes you, but if that's your criteria for every game then you might want to relax it a bit. Just buy games in sales and give money to charity, okay? This week's Humble Bundle sale presents Alan Wake, Remedy's love letter to Stephen King novels and lovely naps. But it's more of a nap that a baby has, where it wakes up screaming and smelling of poo, because the bundle also marks the end of Remedy's work on an Alan Wake sequel.
]]>Remedy man Sam Lake has tweeted: "It's all true. "It will happen again, in another town, a town called Ordinary." It's happening now." This seems to be a tease for a new Alan Wake game, judging by the link he provided with it, which is packed with Wake references.
]]>It took Alan Wake ages to find his way to PC but his second adventure arrived almost immediately after its XBLA release. At this rate, the planned full-blown sequel will arrive in 2007, long before it surfaces on the Microbox 7.20. But if American Nightmare isn’t a sequel, what is it? An arcade, action-orientated spinoff? An experimental short story? A fever dream? Expect spoilers for the first game as I tell you wot I think.
]]>Alan Wake might not be an unqualified success as far as survival horror games about narcissistic fiction authors go, but it's a well-intentioned affair that very much did the technical legwork for its recently uncancelled PC version. And it's paid off for Finnish developers Remedy, who report that Alan Wake PC was profitable within 48 hours of release.
PC! Profit! Do you hear that, publishers?
]]>A mere two years after being rather spuriously denied a PC release, the videogame called Alan has skulked, tail between his legs, back over here. Worth the wait? I fitted as many batteries as I could into my Torch Of Truth and investigated.
Perhaps the iconic image of Alan Wake: our glowering, scarf-clad hero runs from the dark wilderness that's all around, towards an eerie light in an abandoned structure ahead of him, while the air itself seems to shimmer with otherwordly blackness... and a thermos flask glimmers improbably on a rocky outcrop in the distance. Alan Wake specialises in not entirely making sense, and the occasional, pointless coffee flasks exemplify that. You can collect them all, but... well, why? Don't get me wrong: I of all people can empathise with any writer (for that is Alan's trade) feeling he is utterly dependent upon the constant consumption of lukewarm caffeinated beverages to survive, but Alan doesn't even close his eyes contentedly and make a sort of sex noise like the rest of us do when we lay our hands on sweet, sweet coffee. The thermoses are just there. They serve no purpose, there is no internal logic to explain their presence or their effects on Alan and... well, that's Alan Wake all over.
]]>Earlier this week I spoke with Oskari Häkkinen, head of franchise development at Remedy, about the PC release of Alan Wake. We talked about the importance of PC gaming to the Remedy team, drawing inspiration from popular culture and whether Alan's further adventures will be following close behind.
]]>Remedy's sleepy writer sim Alan Wake is out on Steam in a day and a bit, after the lengthiest beta test we've ever experienced. As far as I can tell, it's a perfectly accurate recreation of the life of a writer: just this morning, my breakfast was interrupted when I realised I had been sitting on my foot and that foot was now asleep possessed by a demon intent on enslaving the world to do its bidding. What does it want? It wants YOU to watch the launch trailer they've just released, or it'll smite you with corns. I've embedded it below, to save your soles.
Alan Wake on PC gets a release date. It is the oh my goodness it's only two weeks away. The 16th Feb. And tis being sensibly priced too, for a two year old game, at $30. Developers Remedy have been putting some proper effort into the PC version. Not only has it been souped up with improved graphics, but it'll also support multiple monitors and stereoscopic 3D.
]]>Remedy's supernatural thriller, Alan Wake, will be arriving in February, they explain on their forums. They also say: "Games for Windows Live will not be used; we will be fully supporting the Steam platform." Just in case you missed that. Other issues of note include the fact that it doesn't (yet) run perfectly on Windows XP, and it won't have mod support.
I've posted the minimum specifications below. We broke the news about Alan's appearance on PC with interview snippets here and here.
]]>A couple of days ago, Remedy confirmed the rumour that Alan Wake would be at last be seeing a PC version. Our man Dan Griddled-octopus managed to coax a few (rather evasive) words on that subject out of Aki Järvilehto, Executive Vice President at Remedy, but before he could escape we sent Dan back with a couple of particularly burning additional questions. Specifically: that infamous "Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen" comment and on whether there's a risk of Games For Windows Live. Did we get answers? Um. Sort of.
]]>Our man Dan Griliopoulos was at the Alan Wake PC announcement earlier today, and immediately managed to pin down Aki Järvilehto, Executive Vice President at Remedy for a few questions. And some very, very short answers. Tackled: why now, what'll be different on PC, whether there'll be any new content, whether the new Wake game American Nightmare might come to PC, and whether or not Aki likes being asked questions like that. We don't entirely believe his reply to that one.
]]>Yes, squinty torch-waver Alan Wake is indeed headed PC-wards. Specifically: Q1 2012, on Steam. As suspected. Clicketh yon image above for a larger version, and see below for the first details.
]]>Rumour 1! Said Remedy's Aki Järvilehto to a Finnish site on the subject of Alan Wake on PC: "We have received feedback from a lot of PC gamers, and I have to admit that yes, we somehow ignored that. Let’s see if in the near future we could have some positive news to tell you about dating!" (Positive news about dating? You mean she liked me after all?) This seems something of a change of tune.
Rumour 2! Via the same nefarious database-exploring methods as turned up the apparent leak of the latest Humble Bundle contents, we have the below image of the game apparently readying for a Steam release. Rumour! Speculation! Possible Photoshopping! But what the hell - it'd be lovely to have Remedy back, even if Alan reviews were decidedly mixed.
]]>This broke on Friday, but worth bringing up here, I think. Remember the wide-spread eye-rolling provoked by the ludicrous piece of marketing gibberish that the atmospheric horror game basically wouldn't work on the PC due to a lack of sofa-magic or something? Well, Remedy's Oskari Häkkinen tells VG247 that's more of a preference thing, and the real reason is that they're a small 50-person company and don't really have the staff to do both at once, at least well. They'll sit down with Microsoft afterwards. My take? Expect to see Alan Wake PC six months to a year after the 360 release. They'll want to maximise its console-exclusive potential then consider a port.
]]>No. Noooo. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. No. No. No. "Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience “Alan Wake” was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive. Both Microsoft and Remedy have long histories in PC game development. This decision was about matching this specific game to the right platform.” Sez nasty Mister Microsoft. Nooooooooooo. There's a trailer beneath the cut, if you wish to mourn for what might have been.
]]>Can a man called Alan really be an iconic action hero? Divining rods point to yes after watching this actual-proper-footage demo of Alan Wake on stage at last night's Microsoft presentation. The light-as-weapon really does look like an interesting system, and the general visuals seem to be an enormously high quality. Hard to really know if it's going to have the frights we'd expect from a supernatural thriller, but you can bet Alan is regretting marrying a woman with such as spooky voice. Go watch.
]]>[Wot - Ed]
Gamershyde are the first to put up a load (if six counts of a load) of images of the mysterious Alan Wake, so they get linked. Which is pretty good - but then 1UP actually got an embedded version up, which means they get linked too and the petty little video thrown beneath the cut, plus some frame-by-frame analysis of a bloke running around in the dark with a torch.
]]>The mighty Shacknews points out that Remedy have murmured on their official forums, assuring fans that psychological-thriller Alan Wake is still in development.
]]>Boo - probably no Alan Wake this year, apparently. Well, I say 'boo', but in all honesty we still know very, very little about this game, even though it was announced some three years ago. So I have almost no idea what it is I'm missing out on. I only know I want it.
]]>Well, it's probably coming out in 2008. Rumours report it looking finished this time a year ago, so hopefully all those additional months are polishing the game up to a glowy sheen. Alan Wake is one of those projects that has rumbled along beneath the gaming radar, without ever revealing much in the way of content or planned release schedules. Nevertheless it's a significant release: the game that the Max Payne team, Remedy, did next, and a title that Microsoft has pegged as “Vista Only” in an unsubtle attempt to nudge more gamers out of XP and into the latest operating system.
Not only that, but what we have seen of Alan Wake so far suggests it could be a genuinely interesting survival horror, mixing up the action of Max Payne with a freeform world and Resident Evil-style frighteners.
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