Game news It’s one of the best video games of 2023 and despite its critical success, it’s not there!
While one of the best games of 2023 and one of its biggest surprises, this horror game still hasn’t paid for itself for its developer. A shame for one of the most serious competitors in the GOTY!
Is Alan Wake 2 a critical and popular success?
At the end of April, it’s time for the studios to take stock of their financial results for 2023 and look back on the past year. While some share good news with their audience, this is not true for everyone and some sometimes even make surprising discoveries. This is for example the case of Remedy, the Swedish studio behind Max Payne, Quantum Break and Control, which returned to the results of Alan Wake 2 which is sure to surprise more than oneespecially given its quality.
Thus, in Remedy’s financial report for the first quarter of 2024, we first learn that Alan Wake II has sold 1.3 million copies worldwide since its release. Given this score, it is the title which sold the fastest in the history of the Swedish studio which still remains of a fairly modest size. A great achievement when we see that the title was nominated to possibly win the prize for best game of the year 2023. However, one sentence slightly qualifies what could be considered a resounding success.
“An important part”
A little further on, we can read that Alan Wake 2 “recovered a significant portion of its development and marketing costs”. If this may sound rather positive, by reading between the lines, we understand that Alan Wake 2 has therefore not fully incurred its development costs, which means that it is still not profitable for Remedy. A real surprise for a game nominated for best game of the year at the Game Awards ceremony. Even if horror remains a niche genre, the title received significant publicity and was acclaimed by critics and players, which makes this result even more surprising.
In all cases, the sentence still remains quite vague and we can give Remedy the benefit of the doubt while awaiting official confirmation. We nevertheless hope that the title will recoup its costs given its quality.