Remedy acquires publishing rights to Alan Wake from Microsoft

In 2010, Microsoft published the Remedy-developed Twin Peaks-esque cult-classic Alan Wake exclusively for Xbox 360 and PC. The game was well-received for its weird but incredibly compelling story that mimicked very specific tones and story threads of other cult classic horror genre tales.

Despite getting a smaller digital-only spin-off, Alan Wake as a series has been dormant for nearly a decade. Rumblings of a sequel have happened time and time again but for a variety of reasons, a true sequel has never been able to get off the ground completely. That said, it doesn’t look like it’s going to remain that way.

Remedy announced today that they have acquired the publishing rights to the Alan Wake IP from Microsoft. This doesn’t seem to have been through a business deal where money changed hands but rather the rights reverting from Microsoft back to Remedy due to inactivity with the IP.

Remedy also announced that they have received 2.5 million euros in royalties from previously released games and will be using them to develop more games, one of which likely being a new Alan Wake.

“For its first half-year period of 2019, Remedy Entertainment Plc records approximately 2.5 million euros of royalties from previously released games as one-time income,” said Remedy in a statement. “The royalties are paid to Remedy during the second half-year period of 2019. In relation to this, the publishing rights of Alan Wake games are reverted to Remedy.”

Remedy will release their next game, Control, this August for Xbox One, PS4, and PC as well as continue work on the story mode for shooter Crossfire X. Given the turn around for Quantum Break to Control (over four years), it might be a minute until we see what Remedy is doing with the Alan Wake IP.

That said, there have been attempts to make a sequel in the past so maybe the ideas are already there and they won’t have to completely start from scratch.

Control releases on August 27th, 2019.