Between May of 2017 and October 2018, the original release of Alan Wake was removed from sale on Steam due to expiring music licences – an unfortunately common occurrence in the video games industry. Luckily, these licences were able to be restored, with the game coming back on sale a year later. Once again however, such licences have now forced Alan Wake to address the problem. Fortunately, just one song is set to be removed.
Making the announcement on Twitter, the official Alan Wake page shared the following: “Alan Wake (2010) will receive an update on September 10th at 11am UTC. The update will be to all PC versions (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG). This update removes the song Space Oddity from the game due to changes in licensing, and replaces it with a new original song by Petri Alanko, Strange Moons.”
While an unfortunate – yet expected – outcome, the team confirmed that the more recent 2021 Remaster of Alan Wake will not be impacted by this change.
Unlike many titles which have a swarth of music licences, Remedy Entertainment seem set on ensuring the original Alan Wake is available to play and experience – something which most racing games unfortunately seem to have no interest in.
Given the fact that music plays a big role in Remedy’s games, it will be interesting to see what this new original song winds up being – and how it’ll affect the game’s overall messaging/tone.
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KitGuru says: What do you think of the relationship between games and music licences? Should more titles take a similar approach to remedy with their solutions? Let us know your thoughts down below.