Remedy Entertainment is no stranger to disastrous launches. One of its most iconic (and underrated) projects came out in 2010 with little to no acclaim. Barely anyone remembered it until it became a cult classic due to word of mouth. Over the years, Remedy has improved its reputation, releasing commercial and critical hits like Quantum Break and Control, among others. Alan Wake 2 is on track to surpassing Remedy’s best outings, given how critics can’t help but sing it a lot of praises. After risking what could’ve been a disastrous launch, especially on PC, all the pre-launch concerns are now water under the bridge.
Leaving little to chance, Remedy made sure that, despite not being available on Steam, PC gamers will want to check out Alan Wake 2 by skipping the use of a certain anti-piracy feature.
Alan Wake 2 does not have Denuvo, the controversial anti-tampering software that had nearly derailed one of the year’s biggest surprises in Lies of P and possibly affected the user reviews of Assassin’s Creed: Mirage.
The internet is firm that Denuvo affects performance on PC despite Irdeto’s constant denial. This is why many aren’t the biggest fans of its use and much more are all for developers that don’t use this “unnecessary” feature. The news that Alan Wake 2 doesn’t have Denuvo should go well among PC gamers that felt burned by the steep requirements.
Coincidentally, Alan Wake 2 performs well even on “low-end” CPUs. Many trusted sources, specifically the ever-reliable Digital Foundry, confirm that Alan Wake 2 scales well on PC. In fact, one of the game’s developers confirmed that the PC requirements of Alan Wake 2 are overblown. This shoots down all talks that Alan Wake 2 isn’t optimized. If anything, the sequel is one of the most optimized games in recent memory. Technically, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X runs it on “low” settings and it doesn’t look the part.
However, skeptics will be quick to point out that Alan Wake 2 is barely out. Because it’s exclusive to Epic Games Store – sorry, Alan Wake 2 is not coming to Steam anytime soon – we can’t read user reviews about how well it’s performing on certain hardware. Not to mention, developers have previously sneaked Denuvo into their games alongside a launch update. Remedy hasn’t done this yet, but there’s genuine and legitimate concern that it’s only a matter of time.
For now though, Alan Wake 2 is defying expectations and proving that steep PC requirements aren’t a hindrance.
Make no mistake, Alan Wake 2 is very much a modern Crysis – a showcase of high-end PC hardware when you enable everything. It’s also just as bad as “some” people are saying on low-end machines that fall below its minimum hardware requirements. It’s not necessarily a bad thing and it’s up to you if the visual payoff and gameplay experience are worth tinkering around. What’s clear is that Remedy’s goal was to create a dense and realistic world at the expense of aging hardware on PC. Thankfully, the developers gave PC gamers a plethora of options to improve the performance without making the visuals take as big of a hit.
What’s perhaps the more surprising part is Alan Wake 2 not supporting HDDs. Unless you look at the minimum system requirements, you’d never know about this. Remedy might want to do a PSA and tell everyone to buy an SSD first before purchasing Alan Wake 2. Otherwise, they’re in for a completely different experience.
Ultimately, the main takeaway is that those with lower-end PCs that fall close to the minimum requirements will either want to upgrade their set up or turn down their settings. It’s a taxing game that will force most gamers to settle for sub 60 fps frame rates.
With further optimization, Alan Wake 2’s performance on PC should improve. Thankfully, Remedy already has plans for a post-launch update and at least two expansions over the next two years.
As for Alan Wake 2, it’s arguably the first game to actually make casual audiences curious about how much better it may look on a PlayStation 5 Pro.
