Alan Wake 2 Is a Digital-Only Release, $60 on PS5

Hopefully not more big Publishers will also switch to digital only in the future. The explanation Epic gives for AW2 is ***** tho

It won't stop me from getting it, but I'm a big enough Remedy fan that I would have liked it to sit on my shelf.

To bad. Not buying it then. In my personal opinion, 60 for a digital game is to much. This is probably also going to be day one game pass game and future ps+.

Lol what? Ridiculous. I'll be skipping this for the time being then. I won't buy a larger scale game at launch on digital platforms.

@Martijn87 very unlikely to be on game pass. Sony seem to have the marketing rights

@Olliemar28 the main reason this will probably be the last console I'll buy. Ones the industry goes full digital, I'm out.

I was thinking about preordering it, but now it's digital-only I'm going to wait for a steep discount. I understand going digital only but it being tied to an account that I could quickly lose access to because of something out of my control is something I'm not going to support fully. I don't mind on PC because games can be dirt cheap and if something does happen I could sail the seas, but I'm not paying for a game over £20 for digital access.

Download only....?
That'll be a big fat 'No' then

I've never spent £50 on a digital game

Also, the original Alan Wake never got enough traction to get an immediate sequel, and the remaster didn't sell Gangbusters. Do they think keeping it digital only will help them? They are mad.

I thought it looked interesting but I won’t buy it if it’s digital only. I’ll wait until it’s £4.99 in a sale or when it comes to PS+.

Look like I'm waiting for a heavy sale then.

Guess I’ll be waiting with buying until it’s down to £10 then 🤷🏻‍♂️

Digital only equals no buy from me ,as I only buy physical as you can get something back when trading in personally love physical and if gaming we're to become digital only I'll quit gaming simple as

I’ll use the 50 quid on two indie games that actually managed to get disc releases then.

@Olliemar28 The industry sells what the customers buy. If you look at the success of the TotK’s physical sales, then many publishers will stick of the now established model of same-time physical and digital releases. Last time when someone (Don Mattrick) wanted to fundamentally change the general model of physical releases for consoles, it totally failed. You can even see the renaissance of physical media for music, a medium which already was almost fully digitalised.

I have plenty other hobbies anyway

Bad decision.

Not buying it then. A big AAA release like that should have a physical release. Test the waters on pushing digital only and I hope you lose a lot of sales over it. I'm not supporting that.

Smaller games from smaller studios going digital only I can understand. But not from a big publisher and mainstream IP.

I wish the industry would just admit that they hate physical discs because they don't earn anything from the used-game market.

I can’t find the article but I believe PS had one awhile back saying that it was like 70/30 or higher people buying digital?

Bummer. But it won't hold me back from playing it. But I'll surely watch it a little closer now because of that since reselling isn't an option anymore, so I may not buy it right away and wait for a sale. As of now, this is a day one for me though.

Oh man this is pretty disappointing, I appreciate the price not being £70 but I'd love to have this sat on a shelf next to my original 360 copy

So Remedy are the first ones to kickstart this off then guys.... Watch everyone else follow suit now.

Pathetic,,, not everyone wants to be ripped off with the in-store price 😂😂😂

I understand the approach but this strategy makes it a no for me

If anyone shops overseas, you can buy this for £15 on the turkey PSN store, or £21 for the Delux version.

I guess that’d one way to prevent people from renting or re-selling your game.

@Jeaz some people, like me, buy a game and sell it when we're finished or when it's been sat around a while. I also don't want to drop £50 on a game incase I don't like it because you can't return a digital game. If it's digital only, I'll save my money and use the "free method" of playing it.

Physical media doesn't make any sense since it is not eco-friendly. I will always opt-in for 100GB predownload and 68GB day 1 patch.

This is what gaming is all about

@UltimateOtaku91 I will be waiting for a sale aswell if its digital only

""There are many reasons for this, but what it boils down to is that we just make more money this way."

@Snake_V5 this is a publisher call, not Remedy’s. Epic Games, I think (unless there is another publisher called Epic), is publishing.

These days they only publish F2P games. They know very well that having a box in the shelves helps, because they keep putting empty boxes of Fortnite with coded in stores. Would not be shocked if they end up doing that with this game too, beware.

I guess I’ll wait for it to hit PS+ extra then. If I can’t sell it on eBay when I’m done with it then it’s really a waste of money.

Well my takeaway id maybe the game isnt that good as to why they didnt pursue physical. Ill just wait for super discount in bargain bin

@NinjaNicky not meaning to argue but you can get a refund on digital games even if you didn’t like it on both Steam and Xbox so long you didn’t play it for over 2 hours. If you can judge the game is a stinker within that time, you can get a refund.

Also… where do you buy physical games that will take a return on an opened game?

No, they are skipping it so they don’t lose sales to the secondhand market, which is extremely short sighted. Guess many will just wait for this to be in heavy sale or come to a subscription service.

If the industry goes digital only, it'll kill the second-hand market. You can forget about selling games you don't want anymore. That's what they're aiming for in reality, not be environment conscious or reduce plastic.

@Jeaz
Because it can be multiple times more expensive digitally when factoring in the lack of resale. Also far more of a risk to buy at launch for that reason.

So to sum it up, game data won't fit on disc so we are just going to release it digitally, and the expansions? Another reason to skip, by the time they come up this game will be cheaper anyways, some advice for anyone considering purchasing this game

Sony was working with Panasonic back in 2014 on developing a disc capable of holding up to 1 tb so they should still be able to release physical games long into the future. I hope more developers decide to put finished products on discs going forward just like FF 16 which won’t have a day 1 patch. I’ll gladly pay $70 for a physical copy of a no day 1 patch game over a $60 digital only game that requires a patch.

I wonder if Limited Run or someone else will pick up a physical version?

Otherwise I'll be waiting for it to be heavily discounted before I jump back into Bright Falls.

This just makes it easier to wait on this, as while it's all well and good if that is the only reason it's $60 and not $70, I'm not supporting a digital only release for a game of this magnitude. It's different for a small developer to have to release their game digitally initially, but their reasoning outside of maybe the price is complete BS. A lot of other games get physical releases despite digital only versions of consoles, and games are available digitally regardless of a physical release. This would have went down far better if they had just used the price as the excuse.

I likely was going to wait anyways since Assassin's Creed Mirage comes out in the same month. Maybe by the time I get around to it, one of the other companies will have picked it up for a physical release. It's a shame they had to go and try to spin this whenever there was an easy excuse (the price), especially since it looked fantastic in the trailer yesterday.

I’ll be getting this at launch will probably punt for the deluxe edition as I’ve loved every Remedy game I’ve played. I buy 95% of my games digitally so this doesn’t bother me at all, can understand why people who buy and then sell games are upset. This could become the norm in the next few years as it’s the way the industry is swinging

Should have stuck to Control. AW was popular, now it’s just a niche game. Unsure how I feel about digital only, won’t pay $60 for a digital game.

The only new AAA games I've ever bought digitally have been Last of Us 2 and Elden Ring. Everything else I buy physical and sell on, if I like it enough I'll get digital down the line at a reduced price. It's the only way I can financially justify purchasing new games.

@PenguinLtd do you not buy wallet top up cards from shopto or cdkeys? You can get up to 20% discounts on certain amounts

Urgh, I don't have space on my drive and I hate having to go in and faff about deciding what to delete or not to make it. Having to re-download old games because you had to delete them to play new games sucks and takes ages, just let me swap the disc out.

Always taken the pricing of digital releases being the same as retail,(originally touted as not to hurt sales),with a pinch of salt given it was more likely the brick & mortar shops would tend to sell them cheaper BITD,by $20-$30 when there was greater competition.

Nowadays there's so many online store/service accounts looking to tie you into them, with occasional freebies or ones like Gamepass which seek to push subscription over ownership altogether!🙄

Not sure if the likes of Fortnite could count as a physical release when I'm guessing it'd been pointless to release in disc format & surely was a code in those console bundles!

That's fine by me. I haven't got anything physical game wise since the start of the ps4 xbox one gen.
I get some points but I don't really see any point in buying physical over digital it's just kinda pointless let alone swapping games and all that and obviously the amount of people that do still buy physical are tiny....

Im more then happy for more publishers to do digital only releases and I'll still pre order and oay full price for them 🤷🤷.
Can't wait for Alan wake 2

While I have no doubt almost everything eventually shifts more units digitally, physical copies can still make up a pretty decent chunk of a game's total launch sales. Totally bypassing that in order to push a digital-only gimmick with your release doesn't seem ideal.

If you don't want to see a future where a huge chunk of a generation's big games are digital only, I recommend pushing back now and not buying in at launch. As with the $70 MSRP push Sony recently succeeded with, the more companies get away with it, the more you'll see the trend snowball. If consumers hadn't pushed back on Microsoft during the Xbox One reveal, we could be living in a present where game discs only work on registered systems and your console has to be online at all times.

@Czar_Khastik maintaining those giant servers that run 24-7 isn't exactly eco-friendly.

@AinsleyE

People will still buy it regardless. It doesn’t change a thing.

@Martijn87 I'm sure the servers are set to Eco Mode in their power option settings. It's all good.

I’ll be skipping this one

No buy for me, I'll probably just play one of them "free versions" on PC

Not liking the whole only digital thing

They've lost a sale from me then.

...& with this information I no longer will be playing nor purchasing any further Remedy products. Besides " Control" was the last good game.

Yeah nah, not happy Jan.

@KaijuKaiser Indeed! The almost pathological hatred of digital here (and it's definitely more here than most other sites) is weird.

It's not even properly informed. It's easy to buy cheap PSN credit that takes around 15% off the store price, sales are plentiful, and if you want even cheaper prices (far cheaper than physical, in fact) then there is the Turkey store. FF XVI £32, anyone? That's what I paid for my pre-order the other day, and I look forward to playing it on my UK account on release day. Some people even still seem to believe disc games take up less space than digital (!)

Now to be fair, I'm someone who hasn't used discs for any form of media for many years, and wouldn't ever go back to them for any reason.

But regardless of all that, people complaining and pretending that they won't ever buy games in a digital future are basically pissing in the wind at this point anyway.

That's the easiest way of helping me save some cash, digital only? Not for me then

@Gamer_Guy It seems to be the digital only crowd are the ones carrying the hatred. Physical fans are happy for both forms to exist, while digital devotees seem to be insulted by the mere existence of physical games.
You love digital, good for you, not sure how your world will be improved if everyone is forced into the same boat as you though.

Edit: And for the the stuff they listed as the reason for this choice, lets face it the real reason is this game isn't going to sell very many copies either way.

@Jeaz no replay value, no resell value. It’s very easy to understand

Pass.
It's brave I'll give them that.

Digital only? R.I.P

If this is a sign of the times then looks like my future of gaming will be on PC. No point sticking around on console if its not physical.

@Jeaz A lot of people aren't going to spend anywhere near £60 on a digital game, my limit is around £15-£20

Imagine spending £60 on a digital game, you don't like it and only play an hour, £60 down the drain.

I have several digital games I've played no more than an hour and I'm stuck with them, luckily I never spent more than £15.

I barely buy disc games any more. I’m more surprised people on here still do.

@TrickyDicky99 it’s why you should research a game before buying it

@twitchtvpat digital sales are much higher than physical, this website caters to a “core gaming” crowd, that’s why you get more pro physical comments. It’s not representative of most of the purchasing population. That being said, the real bummer of an all digital future is that it severely limits the property rights of the purchaser and expands the rights of the seller.

Disc buyers: "When digital takes over, we won't ever ever ever buy any games again, we pwomise."

Rest of world: 🤣

@twitchtvpat You can research a game all you like, doesn't mean you'll like it.

I bought Red Dead 2 day 1 for £55 physical (it was £60 digital), found it extremely boring, and sold it 2 weeks later for £40, so it only cost me £10. I would of wasted £60 if I bought digital.

@Jeaz Most of my games are digital as I don't play many AAA games and I have a lot of PSVR games, but I never spend more than £15-£20 and usually I spend under £10 on a game.

But when it comes to AAA games no way am I spending 60-70 on a digital game under any circumstances. Physical is usually cheaper and you have the option to trade/sell

This sucks. I know I'm cutting my nose of to spite my face but I won't buy this now. Crazy decision not to release a physical copy of this game.

I hate this but remedy's reasoning does make sense.

@Tharsman I usually go Argos. I take it back and say it doesn't work in my console etc and when they offer a swap, I just say I want my money back.

I’ve been digital-only since halfway through the PS3 generation. So this doesn’t affect me one bit.

The fact that a company has used digital-only as a way to lower the price of game should be good news. Or it would have been good news if it had started in 2012. Now they just took $10 off the current-gen markup price, putting it back to standard price. I’m unimpressed.

Now I hope the game will sell poorly just to prove that we're not there yet. And they won't even bother giving us a trial.

I suspect they will do the same with Max Payne. Sad

really bad news for a big game like this to be pushing pure digital at this stage in the consoles.

haven't got round to playing alan wake 1 yet so no rush for me to buy the sequel.

In that case, Remedy, I won't buy your game. You could have printed a limited number or have a third party distribute the game on disc but I suspect the deal with Epic has something to do with this.

As others have said, once this industry goes fully digital, I'm out.

I'll get the deluxe edition. It's only £65 sterling🤣

Digital only = no buy from me.
However. I do respect the reasoning behind it in this case.

i predicted the ps5 would be the last generation with physical media and an optical drive. moves like this will certainly encourage more developers to follow the trend of digital media. i'm not happy about this but i have moved on from the denial phase and accept that the industry is moving in a new direction, whether i like it or not. sony, nintendo and microsoft want to control their software 100% and that means cutting out the physical/used game market. in 6-7 years all the major publishers will be digital only and will not look back... the only possibilty physical media continues 10 years down the road is if they manufacture a very limited print run (with inflated pricing) of some games and apply FOMO tactics which would be despicable (similar to how limited run games model works). there would only be a digital SKU of the ps6 with an optional external drive for those who would want in. even this prediction is being too optimisitc though...

I’ve never bought a game at launch digitally for $60. Physical is just more valuable in almost every sense (well, digital has no value really outside your account). This is a gross development for the gaming industry. I’ll be avoiding this until it hits PS+. It’s a shame really.

I would have bought this game on release physical, but will skip it if it's digital only. I sell my games after I finish them, which usually means I can get $30 back from a $60 game. Making it digital only basically makes this game $30 more expensive than everything else I play. No thanks!

This is a shame, i am a massive lover of the original game, and bought the remake. But digital only has moved this from a day 1 purchase to a, maybe one day. Ill wait for a sale or release on plus. Im not sinking 60 quid on a digital game. Never have, never will. Plenty of other games, plenty of other hobbies to sort me until then.

Won't be buying it until it's on sale then...

@BlueBeemer a few things to consider: gamestop is not the only place to sell used physical games. there are plenty of community forums and websites such as kijiji (here in canada) and craigslist. if you are looking to sell a used game to someone soon after release, you can easily get up to 80% of the amount you spent. i.e. you buy a new release which costs about $100CAD including taxes and you can sell it back to someone for $80. not a bad deal. obviously if the game is older you might only get 50% or less back depending on the game (although some games may actually retain their value or even increase over the MSRP over time). that is still valuable for those who don't have an unlimited budget to spend on gaming. physical beats digital in this regard.

you are correct that all the data from the disc needs to be installed on the hard drive nowadays, however, if you have your games in physical format, you can skip the initial download since most of the data is on the disc (not including the patch updates of course). this means you don't need to spend hours downloading a 100GB file before playing the game. physical beats digital here as well.

over time, some games get delisted on digital storefronts. if you have not added said game to your downloads list before it disappears, you will not be able to obtain it and are out of luck. but wait, if you own it physically, you don't have to worry about such problems arising. physical beats digital yet again.

lastly, there is something to be said about having a physical collection of games on the shelf. it is no different than having a book collection. it acts as a decorative piece or display for the game room. i realize this is a personal preference that not everyone will share, but it is something that i like having.

agreed about the possibility of disc rot but i have yet to hear of this problem for ps2 games and later (anything on dvd or bluray format). ps1 games, yes, it does occur on ocassion but it can be prevented if your games are kept in a controlled environment in most cases. as for ps2 games and later, i think we will be safe for another 50 years so i'm not concerned there.

hopefully they will release it on disc as the ultimate edition when all dlc is finished.

I know digital is the future, but won't be buying. Also I find the reasoning disingenuous; if they want to save money or "keep costs down", they could just charge 10 more dollars or euros for the physical edition. I've been arguing digital copies should be around 10 bucks cheaper compared to physical for years now anyways. It's always been pure greed that they charge the same price for digital copies while saving money on manufacturing and distribution. I've heard retailers demand price parity but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny really.

All those people saying nobody cares about physical games anymore, remember about 30% of sales for a given release are still physical. That's a heck of a lot of sales to leave on the table.

I imagine digital sales share will plateau around 85% with the remaining 15% of holdouts refusing to ever buy digital. It will always be a substantial piece of the sales pie. This is ridiculous and I don't get it. Unless - as I suspect - this is just a glorified DRM measure under the guise of cutting costs. Which it is Epic, so yeah...

Digital only? I'll wait until it comes to ps plus then. I never buy digital versions of single player games, because once I've completed them, i never touch them again and like to trade them in.

@Magnus_Selene oh they all will eventually.