Remedy on releasing Alan Wake Remastered in 2021: "puzzle pieces fell into place"

Tomorrow marks the launch day of Alan Wake Remastered, an updated version of the iconic thriller that features better visuals to suit the modern era of gaming hardware. The launch also marks the first time that PlayStation players can dive into the game, after it launched exclusively on Xbox 360 and PC back in the early 2010s. To get an idea as to why Remedy decided to launch the game in 2021 (tomorrow to be exact), we caught up with the developer's communications director, Thomas Puha to get a firm answer on the matter.

"Why now, there's a few reasons for that," said Puha. "Number one is time. Back in 2019, we got the publishing rights back to Alan Wake from Microsoft. We did have the IP rights, but that's a different thing from publishing rights, and once we got those back, we had the better opportunity to decide what to do with the game. As you've mentioned, many people have brought up Alan Wake over the years and we felt it would be great to do a remaster, especially we want it to be available for a larger audience and that of course includes the PlayStation audience that never had the opportunity to play Alan Wake in the first place because it had been a [Xbox] 360 and PC game since 2010 and 2012."

Puha continued, "So there's that, but also just how Remedy has grown in the last five years that we've actually had the capability to work with an external partner. So really, all those puzzle pieces fell into place and here we are."

You can check out the full interview with Puha and Remedy's community manager Vida Starcevic below, where we chat about what makes this remaster worth playing today, as well as what it took to create the game.