THQ Nordic gave a big vote of confidence to physical game editions by publicly offering to publish one such version of Alan Wake 2. This unconventional proposal emerged shortly after Alan Wake 2 was treated to a new gameplay trailer at this week's PlayStation Showcase.
While Sony's May 24 event received a mixed response from the fandom, Alan Wake 2 was one of the third-party highlights of the show. That's largely because its trailer not only featured plenty of gameplay, but also ended with an official release date, thus delivering two things that the broadcast was otherwise fairly light on. The pre-orders for the game went live shortly afterward, along with a new FAQ page that somewhat detracted from the excitement by revealing that Remedy Entertainment made the controversial choice to only release Alan Wake 2 digitally.
THQ Nordic has subsequently taken online to posit that there are still "plenty" of people who prefer their game purchases to be tangible, adding that it would hence "love" to put out a physical version of Alan Wake 2. Seeing how the Austrian publisher already handled the physical release of Alan Wake for PC, it's not opposed to the idea of going "full circle," a company representative wrote on Twitter.
Since AAA publishing deals aren't typically initiated via tweets, it's likely that THQ Nordic's proposal is merely a case of a company seizing an opportunity for some good publicity. That's not to say the offer wasn't sincere, just that the publisher would have likely used different channels to pitch this idea to Remedy Entertainment if it truly believed there's a chance for it to handle the physical release of Alan Wake 2. And while the fans thus shouldn't hold their breath for this deal to materialize, stranger things have happened in the genre, as recently underlined by the physical release of obscure indie survival horror Signalis.
Remedy Entertainment said the decision to make Alan Wake 2 a digital-only launch was informed by "many reasons," of which it named three, the first one being the substantial decline in physical game sales the world over. The Espoo, Finland-based studio also said that doing away with a disc release helped lower its overhead, with some of those savings ultimately being passed on to consumers. For context, the console edition of Alan Wake 2 will retail at $59.99, while the PC version will be $10 cheaper. In an era of $70 games being a common sight on the store shelves, those are some fairly sensible figures for a AAA game.
Remedy also suggested it considered a compromise between the two formats in the vein of a boxed copy of Alan Wake 2 that would have required an additional download to play. However, it decided against this distribution model after concluding such a move would deliver a suboptimal consumer experience, as per the game's official FAQ page.
Alan Wake 2 launches October 17 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.