Remember all that less-than-subtle product placement in Alan Wake; the Verizon billboards, the Energizer batteries, and even the limited selection of cars Alan could see? Well, there's good news for those of you who might have been put off by the brazen in-game advertisements; the ads will all be removed in the remaster.
An unnamed PR representative for Alan Wake Remastered reportedly told Screen Rant that the upcoming remaster will not feature any of the branded ads and will instead "be replaced with generic in-universe branding".
While it might not sound like a big deal, many of the branding partnerships at the time played an integral part in the game, such as Alan's Energizer flashlight and accompanying batteries. For some, it helped ground the horror game in our everyday reality, while others found the audacious ads a touch off-putting. Now, it sounds as though Wake can use any old batteries he finds, as the advertising agreements have all now expired and will not be honored in the remaster.
There's also good news for those of you who enjoyed the songs and TV shows, too; all of those will remain intact. Yay!
Alan Wake Remastered is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC (via the Epic Games Store) on October 5, a touch later than therumors which came to light a few weeks ago.
Talking of rumors; the highly-anticipated Alan Wake 2 has now reportedly moved into "full production". If you remember, reports that Alan Wake 2 was reportedly planned for development at Control studio Remedy Entertainment first began to circulate back in April, but nothing's been confirmed as yet, even though it ties in with Remedy obtained the publishing rights to the franchise from Microsoft in 2019. At the time, however, the studio was busy with Control, which featured that awesome full Alan Wake-related expansion.
Remedy has also confirmed that it's working on a new game set in the same universe as both Control and Alan Wake, too, which may be an entirely new IP. Here's hoping we'll hear more sooner rather than later, eh?
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