Alan Wake 2 was properly revealed during yesterday's PlayStation Showcase, with developer Remedy giving us a first glimpse at real gameplay ahead of the title's October release. Alongside this in-game reveal, the team dropped a bunch more Alan Wake 2 info onto its FAQ page, and one detail in particular is starting to turn heads.
To put it simply: Alan Wake 2 will be a digital-only release on all platforms, including Xbox Series X and S. While this is a pretty common thing these days for smaller titles, Remedy's Alan Wake sequel is a huge AAA release and fans are starting to question the move. Well, the team has given us a few reasons for its switch to digital-only:
"There are many reasons for this. For one, a large number of [players] have shifted to digital only. You can buy a Sony PlayStation 5 without a disc drive and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S is a digital only console. It is not uncommon to release modern games as digital-only.
Secondly, not releasing a disc helps keep the price of the game at $59.99 / €59.99 and the PC version at $49.99 / €49.99.
Finally, we did not want to ship a disc product and have it require a download for the game — we do not think this would make for a great experience either."
These are all pretty valid reasons to be honest, and we're sure fans will be happy to see Alan Wake 2 stick to a $60 price point. However, those who do buy physical won't have any option to purchase the game unless plans change, and we're sure they'd have preferred a $70 title that was able to hit store shelves.
Whether Remedy will reverse this decision — or even do some kind of limited run physical release in the future — remains to be seen, but for now, "there are currently no plans to release Alan Wake 2 on disc". There is a Digital Deluxe Edition planned though, containing the game, its Expansion Pass and a bunch of cosmetic DLC packs for $79.99 / €79.99 / £64.99 on Xbox.