Alan Wake 2 was released today, the 27th of October and if the recently released launch trailer is anything to go by, it looks like a must-play title this Halloween. Amid all the high anticipation for the game’s release, several fans were left worried about missing out on the game as the minimum requirements to run the game looked quite challenging.
The system requirements for the game divided the gaming community and created quite a lot of criticism for the lack of optimization and unrealistic hardware expectations. Alan Wake 2 Dev has now stated that they played safe about PC requirements.
Alan Wake 2 Dev Played Safe About System Requirements
Thomas Puha, Remedy Entertainment’s Communications Director has not been at rest with less than 24 hours before Alan Wake 2‘s global launch.
Puha posted on X earlier today stating how the team had played safe on PC settings, trying to “Underpromise, Overdeliver”. In a separate post that followed, Puha also posted that he was glad the team had “undersold the performance mode” as well.
Alan Wake 2‘s ridiculous PC requirements were revealed on the 20th of this month dividing the specs into three tiers, named Minimum, Recommended, and Ultra, and a separate spec list for those seeking Ray-Tracing support. There wasn’t much difference between the best and the least performance modes as the requirements were quite high for the minimum requirements as well.
The requirements drew diverse reactions from the PC gaming community. Those with older NVIDIA series or AMD series cards were mostly left empty-handed, leading to criticism. Recently, Starfield had also surprised gamers with the requirement of an SSD for better performance which forced a majority of gamers using the legacy HDD to upgrade to experience the game lag-free.
Puha’s statement on having stayed safe about the system requirements indicates that the game is optimized perfectly well on PC. There might still be visual glitches on really old GPUs like the NVIDIA 10 series or AMD 5000 series GPUs, which should be expected.
Alan Wake 2 Console Versions Also Well-Optimized
Thomas Puha had earlier also addressed console users’ concerns stating that the team has taken great care and that console gamers will definitely be “positively surprised.” Stating that he’s a console player himself, Puha expressed that he’s quite happy with how well-optimized the game is on the consoles.
He further stated that the team has focused a lot on consoles “throughout development ensuring the game would run well and look as incredible as it does”. Puha ended his quote by saying they did focus on all platforms “to be fair”.
The game is locked at 30fps on consoles, however, Puha did also mention that there will be a Performance mode on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Alan Wake 2 is said to be built from the beginning as a “30fps experience focusing on visuals and ambiance”.
Remedy has also announced the first set of post-launch updates for Alan Wake 2, which will be the addition of a New Game+ mode. Not much has been revealed and an exact release timing is yet to be announced but from what’s announced, it’s said to include a new “Nightmare” difficulty level.
The new level will include a new alternative narrative along with new manuscript pages and new video content. New Game+ mode will also retain all weapons and upgrades unlocked by players in the original campaign.
Finally, two paid expansions, titled Night Springs and Lake House have also been announced. Again, no further details about the expansions have been revealed yet, nor did Remedy reveal an exact date for the expansion release.
Alan Wake 2 comes out tomorrow, in less than 12 hours, with horror elements featuring heavily in the game. Those looking to pre-load the game right away should know the game requires 85 GB on the PlayStation 5, 82 GB on the Xbox Series X|S consoles, and 86 GB on PC. The full review is already up on our website, also linked above in this article.
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