Alan Wake won’t be available for sale for much longer, giving you only a few more days to pick it up through an official retailer.
As explained in a post on developer Remedy’s forums, the music licenses for the game will soon expire, which means it can’t continue to be sold in its current form. This applies to both the PC and Xbox 360 versions –it will disappear from the likes of Steam, GOG, and the Xbox Store after this Monday, May 15. The follow-up game, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, is unaffected and will still be sold.
Remedy says it’s “looking into relicensing the music,” which would allow Alan Wake to return to stores, but it doesn’t have an estimate for how soon–or if–that will happen. As such, if you’re interested in owning or playing it, you should pick it up before it disappears.
At least one retailer will make doing so relatively pain-free. Starting on Saturday, May 13, at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET, Alan Wake will be 90% off on Steam, dropping it from $30 to just $3. It’s unclear at this point if it will also go on sale elsewhere in advance of the game’s removal. If you opt to pick up the Xbox 360 version, it can be played on Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
Alan Wake was originally released back in 2010. It’s an atmospheric horror game about an author who lives through the events of a novel he has no memory of writing. Twin Peaks fans, in particular, are in for a treat–while not to the same degree as Deadly Premonition, it does draw inspiration from the classic show. For more on what to expect, check out GameSpot’s Alan Wake review.