Alan Wake 2 is out today, and it’s already shaping up to be one of 2023’s most talked-about games. Launching to high critical acclaim, it’s currently available for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. If you plan on playing it on PC, though, you’ll have to do so through the Epic Games Store, as it’s not available on Steam. If you’re unfamiliar with the platform or haven’t played many games through it, here’s something you’ll want to do before starting: get rid of the app’s obnoxious achievement notifications.
Like most platforms, Epic Games Store has its own achievement system. Whenever you clear one in a game, you’ll get a big banner at the top of the screen and a loud, cloying ding accompanying it. That’s easy to live with in a game with a handful of achievements, but considering that Alan Wake 2 has 66, you’ll be seeing it a lot if you leave it on. The survival horror game is a maste rclass in atmosphere, so that ding can be a real mood killer in its most dramatic moments.
Unfortunately, Epic Games Store doesn’t give you a way to fully hide those notifications. That’s left gamers to create their own workarounds instead. Thanks to one Redditor, players have a bit of a hacky workaround to help get rid of the horror game’s biggest jump scare.
How to hide Epic Games Store achievement pop-ups
The easiest answer here is to simply play in offline mode, though that might not be the most ideal solution for most players. If you want to get a little more experimental, you’ll have to roll your sleeves up.
The solution comes from Reddit user Xbob42 in a thread asking how to disable achievement pop-ups. While Digital Trends is not able to fully confirm its effectiveness, several users have verified that it’s working for them. Just note that this will likely delete the achievement notification permanently. This is more of a last-ditch solution, so use it with caution.
To pull it off, launch Alan Wake 2. While the game is open, bring up your Task Manager by pressing CTRL + ALT + Delete. Navigate to Alan Wake 2 under Apps, expand the carrot next to it, and you should see “EOSOverlay Renderer” pop up a few times. Right click on one of those and select Open file location. If you don’t want to do all that, simply navigate to it without launching the game by going to Epic Games > Launcher > Portal > Extras > Overlay.
Once you have the folder open, delete the files inside it (if you have the game open, close it before doing so). If you don’t want to get rid of them permanently, one Reddit user notes that simply renaming the Overlay files seems to work as well. Remember that if something goes wrong, you can always just uninstall the launcher and reinstall it to restore it all back to normal, so the stakes aren’t too high here.
Hopefully, that small change will help PC players stay immersed in their Alan Wake 2 playthrough.
