Alan Wake 2 may not have sold all too well, according to industry analyst
Alan Wake 2 has been one of the best games in 2023, deservedly raking in several trophies at The Game Awards. However, developer Remedy Entertainment and publisher Epic Games so far have been rather silent about the title’s commercial performance. Usually, milestones like a million sales are openly celebrated by companies to showcase their success story, but we did not hear anything of the sort about Alan Wake 2 yet.
According to industry analyst Mat Piscatella, the lauded horror survival game ranked very low on both the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in terms of active users all throughout November 2023 – a worrying sign for a game that was released in the final days of October. We don’t know how well the game did on PC, though as an exclusive on the Epic Games Store its reach on the platform was likely limited as well.
Alan Wake 2 is definitely a critical hit, but there are doubts about its commercial success.
Remedy Entertainment
Mind you, that doesn’t automatically mean that the game has been a financial flop for Remedy – sometimes games don’t sell in numbers the public would find impressive while exceeding what the developer itself had expected.
Asked by journalist Jason Schreier if that data was as bad as it seemed, Piscatella responded: “Hard to know for sure. [...] But, in my opinion, a physical release and more promotion wouldn’t have hurt on the consoles.”
Alan Wake 2 was released as a digital-only game, which led to a public outcry from fans who demanded a physical edition of the title. Remedy also released an Alan Wake 2 DLC roadmap close to the game’s launch, perhaps prompting some players to wait for a future edition of the game that includes the entirety of the upcoming content on top of the base game.
At the end of the day no one outside of Epic and Remedy has the exact numbers and knows what will be considered a success and what a failure in commercial terms. Critically, of course, Alan Wake 2 has been a phenomenal hit and its success at The Game Awards may boost its sales over the next couple of weeks as well.
An update adding NG+ to the game went live earlier this week.
