Remedy announced last month Alan Wake IIthe long-awaited sequel to the 2010 action game, will not be released on a CD when it comes out on October 17th. This news was worrying for those who would rather have a physical game on their shelf, but in an interview with EurogamerCreative Director Sam Lake and Game Director Kyle Rowley gave a little more context to the decision, and the rationale sounds better for the game in the long run.
Lake and Rowley told it Eurogamer The decision came about because it gave the Remedy team more time to work on the game up to the last minute, instead of having to ship the game in one state to be printed onto CDs, only to then have it gobbled up with all sorts of tweaks and tweaks Added refinements to annotate team between shipping and launch. Video games often have to be written to a CD long before these physical copies are available from your local store, and with day-one patches becoming the new norm, the version of the game on the actual CD that you put in your console is the one Having is often not the “finished” product. According to Lake and Rowley, this was the best course of action in the opinion of both Remedy and publisher Epic Games.
“Of course, as creatives, we have more time to refine the game by working purely digitally,” Rowley said Eurogamer. “Actually, a significant number of weeks. Because otherwise the game that appears on the CD must of course also be playable without a patch.”
Rowley continued, emphasizing the team’s desire to improve the game as much as possible.
“We didn’t want to release anything that we’re not really proud of and that players shouldn’t play. Hopefully this way we can bring you a better version of the game.”
Why is the switch to purely digital solutions important?
It all sounds great on paper. Developers have more time to make the game as good as possible, and players get the best version of the game on release day. However, physical media is bigger than some of us want to put a box on their shelf. Digital distribution has become extraordinarily difficult in recent years because we live in a capitalist hellscape where companies can withdraw an artwork from the public at any time. streaming services are Deleting shows and films from their catalogues with alarming frequency and companies like Nintendo are closure of digital stores and people are being asked to look for overpriced physical copies of rare games. We’re only six months into the year and dozens of games are already there The Thanos style faded from existence.
Additionally, for some people, physical copies are the only way to play games in a timely manner. In the US, rural areas are often subject to internet service provider monopolies that offer poor internet speeds and no alternative. I’ve lived my life in a small town in Georgia where I had to bring entire consoles to my university campus to download games and updates because the internet at home was bad and the company my family used was the was the only option for our area. Buying physical copies was the only way to bypass install sizes of 50+GB without having to wait over a day for the game to be playable. This lack of access is a systemic problem that goes far beyond video games, but it’s a reminder that moving away from physical games has far-reaching ramifications that go beyond nostalgia for boxed copies. The video game industry is leave rural communities behindand as the benefits of purely digital technology to businesses become more apparent, things are likely to get even worse.
In fact, such shifts are already becoming more evident, even if original-packaged specimens still end up on store shelves. Many big games release special editions with download codes instead of a CD, such as God of War: Ragnarok. Over the weekend, there was a brief scare about Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG starfield There may not be any CD copies at all. This ultimately doesn’t seem to be the case. The standard edition comes with a CD, while the $300 special edition will only contain a download code. While not the worst-case scenario, it did seem pretty believable for a moment as this just seems to be the landscape we’re headed for. For better or for worse.
