Alan Wake 2 was beloved by critics when it launched in October last year, with our own Robin Valentine awarding it a score of 89 in his Alan Wake 2 review calling it "a glorious sprawl of surreal horror" that "will stay with you long after you've seen every terrifying encounter, cheesy manuscript page, and quirky local TV commercial". But critical praise is not necessarily indicative of commercial success, and there was a question surrounding Remedy's wilfully odd survival horror sequel – would anyone actually buy it?
The short answer, it turns out, is 'Yes'. Not only that, Alan Wake 2 is officially Remedy's fastest-selling game so far.
In a regulatory release posted earlier today, Remedy announced that Alan Wake 2 had sold 1 million units by the end of December 2023, which had risen to 1.3 million by the beginning of February this year. This makes Alan Wake 2 a substantially faster selling game than Control, shifting 50% more copies in its first two months than Control managed in its first four. Turns out people really like their survival horror games suddenly turning into musicals a third of the way through.
Not that Control has done badly by any metric. The same report also reveals that Control has sold 4 million copies since launch, with Jesse Faden's adventures in The Oldest House pulling in €100 million in revenue for Remedy. Much of this has apparently come from "excellent" long tail sales, with Remedy hopeful that Alan Wake 2 performs similarly.
And Remedy will need it to. While Alan Wake 2's initial sales have been strong, those sales don't amount to a profit for Remedy yet. Providing comment in the release, Remedy's CEO Tero Virtala said the game has "already recouped a significant part of the development and marketing expenses", meaning Alan Wake 2 isn't in the black yet.
Nonetheless, Remedy seems confident about the game's future prospects, and those of the studio as a whole. Alan Wake 2 itself will be getting two paid DLCs down the line, while Virtala notes that the game's launch has "supported our other game projects" namely Control 2, the remake of Max Payne 1 and 2, and Remedy's multiplayer Control spinoff codenamed Condor. Specifically, Virtala says that all three have seen "increased development pace thanks to the personnel released from Alan Wake 2" and that Remedy "expect[s] these projects to reach their next development stages during the first half of 2024".
