Alan Wake 2 won’t be available on disc

Alan Wake 2 simply bought an official launch date — October 17th — however you received’t have the ability to purchase a bodily copy of the sport, developer Treatment Leisure revealed in an FAQ on Wednesday. Treatment has three arguments as to why: it says that many gamers have shifted to solely shopping for video games digitally, not releasing the sport on disc retains the worth down, and the studio didn’t need to require a separate obtain even when it launched a disc product.

Right here’s the corporate’s full rationalization, from the FAQ:

Why is Alan Wake 2 a digital-only launch?

There are various causes for this. For one, a lot of have shifted to digital solely. You should purchase a Sony PlayStation 5 with no disc drive and Microsoft’s Xbox Collection S is a digital solely console. It’s not unusual to launch fashionable video games as digital-only.

Secondly, not releasing a disc helps maintain the worth of the sport at $59.99 / €59.99 and the PC model at $49.99 / €49.99.

Lastly, we didn’t need to ship a disc product and have it require a obtain for the sport — we don’t suppose this could make for an excellent expertise both.

I’m sympathetic to Treatment’s arguments right here. I haven’t purchased a bodily recreation in years, and I’m glad to see that Alan Wake 2 received’t be the next $70 game partly due to this resolution. However I strongly imagine that video games ought to be provided each in digital and bodily editions, particularly as a result of bodily editions could also be a greater possibility for these with poor web connections or who need to accumulate video games for archival purposes.

Sometimes, I’d conclude an article like this by saying that I hope Treatment rethinks its digital-only resolution for Alan Wake 2. However based mostly on the following query in its FAQ, I’m not hopeful that’s going to occur:

Is there a disc-based model of Alan Wake 2 within the works?

There are at the moment no plans to launch Alan Wake 2 on disc.

Alan Wake 2 shall be launched on PS5, Xbox Collection X / S, and PC through the Epic Video games Retailer on October seventeenth.