Skip to main content

'Alan Wake' will be 90 percent off this weekend in a sunset sale

alan wake remedy license alanwake01
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Remedy Entertainment’s  psychological horror action-adventure title, Alan Wake, is set to disappear from Steam indefinitely on Monday May 15 due to expiring music licenses. If you want to pick up the game, you’ll need to do so before then — though it may be worth waiting for the 90 percent off Sunset Sale to start on May 13.

Although well remembered for its pacing and narrative, Alan Wake also features a number of songs from famed artists and groups like David Bowie and Depeche Mode. Although Remedy hasn’t made it clear which song or songs it will no longer have the license to use, it’s because of them that the game will not be salable in digital or physical form in the near future.

Although the original Alan Wake game and all of its DLC will be removed from Steam and other digital and physical stores, they will still be playable for those that own them. That’s why Remedy is putting the game up for sale at 90 percent off over the weekend. The sale doesn’t start until 10 a.m. PT on Saturday May 13 though, so don’t rush out and buy it just yet if you want to get the biggest savings.

This may not be the last time that the game is ever sold, as Remedy’s forum post on the matter claims that it is attempting to relicense the music for the game, but has no idea on how long that will take or if it will ever happen. So it’s safe to say that Alan Wake will not be available for some time following the takedown.

Although it will remain available following the sale, pseudo-sequel, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare will also be discounted this coming weekend.

The discount may apply elsewhere, too, though Remedy has said it doesn’t control what sites like GoG apply to their games, so it may be that the deals for the games are different depending on where you shop.

Editors' Recommendations

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
Where to find all inventory upgrades in Alan Wake 2
Saga stands in front of an evidence board in Alan Wake 2.

While the first Alan Wake game certainly had plenty of scares and horror in it, the mechanics were not as strictly of the survival horror variety. Alan Wake 2 has gone fully in this direction, however, with a much darker tone, disturbing imagery, and restrictive combat mechanics that sustain the tension when The Taken attack.

Aside from limited ammo, low health, and tough enemies to bring down, a key aspect of survival horror games is an inventory system. The first game let you hold essentially as much ammo, batteries, and weapons as you wanted in each chapter, but the sequel introduces a grid system that will look familiar to Resident Evil fans. Just like Resident Evil, your inventory starts off quite small, but you can see there is plenty of space for it to grow. There are specific items hidden in and around Bright Falls that can let you expand your carrying capacity, but many are well hidden in dark corners. Here are the locations of every inventory upgrade in Alan Wake 2.
All inventory upgrades

Read more
All stash locations in Alan Wake 2 and how to open them
Alan drenched in green light in Alan Wake 2.

FBI agent Saga Anderson and her partner, Alex Casey, are called into Bright Falls to investigate a murder committed by a strange group calling themselves the Cult of the Trees. These dangerous cultists are your main enemy in Alan Wake 2, and they put up quite a fight despite mostly using basic tools as weapons. They seem mindless and primitive, but the fact that they have a series of Cultist Stashes hidden all around the world suggests otherwise. These treasure troves are very well hidden, and they're protected with a small puzzle to try and prevent those who may stumble upon one from grabbing all the goodies inside. You'll find yourself short on supplies essentially all the time in Alan Wake 2, so scooping up some extra ammo and batteries is always welcome. Here is where you can find all the Cultist Stashes in Alan Wake 2 and how to open them.
All Cultist Stash locations
There are a total of 21 Cultist Stashes to find and unlock in Alan Wake 2. Each zone has its own set to find, and they all have different puzzles you need to solve to open them. None are missable, but some can't be obtained until you make story progress or get specific tools.
Bright Falls Cult Stashes

The first Cult Stash you can find comes as soon as you reach the town of Bright Falls for the first time. Instead of going straight to your destination down the block, turn around and head toward the dead end. Behind the truck will be a big locked box. To open this one, all you need to do is play a little game of Simon Says. The keypad will flash three buttons in a sequence that you simply need to repeat to open the box and grab the loot.

Read more
Alan Wake 2 on PC is an embarrassment of riches
Alan drenched in green light in Alan Wake 2.

Alan Wake 2 is stuffed with PC tech. It feels like one of the true next-gen games that we've seen on PC, short of remakes like Portal RTX and updates like Cyberpunk 2077. From path tracing to frame generation to AI-powered denoisers, Alan Wake 2 shows off what PC has to offer in 2023, even if that means leaving less powerful rigs behind in this dust.

Although the game itself is straightforward enough, its performance on PC is anything but. Alan Wake 2 is a stunning showcase with high-end hardware and all of the modern bells and whistles enabled, but it's a slog on lower-end machines that fall outside of its demanding minimum hardware requirements. There's good and bad here, and after spending some time with the game, we need to examine both.

Read more