More and more we see developers and publishers forgo physical releases for games, and Remedy’s decision to have “no plans” to release the long awaited Alan Wake II on disc is one of the biggest single-player titles ever to do so.
All of this puts a bit of fear into the hearts of those who still love to collect a disc which each game, but we now know have more of an idea as to why the decision was made.
According to Sam Lake, creative director on Alan Wake II and game director Kyle Rowley it comes down to how much more time the development team gets to polish the game before release.
Rowley points out if it doesn’t have to be ready to print on a disc and shipped out, that’s more time to have a much better launch day than you otherwise would’ve, even in the days of launch day patches.
“As creatives obviously, by going digital-only it does allow us more time to polish the game. Like, a significant amount of weeks actually. Because otherwise, the game that goes on the disc, obviously it has to be playable without a patch.
We didn’t want to release something that we weren’t proud of basically, and that we didn’t want players to play. So hopefully this way we can give you a better version of the game.”
While the lack of a physical release might be harmful to some, this is the attitude a lot of players would appreciate to see in their developers, physical collectors especially, if a disc ever does release.
It would be surprising if Limited Run, Super Rare Games and all the usual suspects weren’t knocking down the doors of Remedy and Epic to get a special physical copy done. Wouldn’t it be great if the best version of the game is the one printed on the disc? Without needing a patch?
THQ Nordic has already offered to do it on Twitter, so it seems very likely that a physical release will happen.
Perhaps Remedy’s new approach will catch on, and we’ll see physical editions, which will remain in major retail stores beyond GameStop and GAME, however long either survive, become even more niche over time.
Source – [Eurogamer]