Alan Wake Remastered Is Ditching The Original Game's Product Placement

Alan Wake's upcoming remaster won't feature any product placement from Energizer or Verizon, as the deals those companies made with Remedy Entertainment expired. Speaking to Screen Rant, a PR representative from Remedy explained that the game will instead replace those real-world ads with fictional in-universe branding, but the songs and TV shows featured in the game will be making a return.

When it was first released in 2010, Alan Wake had a number of real-world products inserted into the game. Energizer batteries could be inserted into flashlights, and Ford-branded vehicles could be found throughout Bright Falls. Verizon had a substantial advertising footprint, as beyond the appearance of phone's featuring the brand, there was a 30-second Verizon commercial that was viewable on an in-game TV and a nod infamous advertising line "Can you hear me now?" in The Signal DLC.

As an Xbox 360 and PC exclusive at the time, even Microsoft got in on the action with the appearance of consoles and collectible Night Springs video games in The Writer DLC. As an added bonus, Microsoft Tag bar codes could be scanned and would direct players to a phone number with the voicemail from one of the game's characters. Alan Wake Remastered is coming later this year, and it looks like the cult-classic game will finally be getting a sequel according to a new report.

While Remedy's Sam Lake said in 2018 that making Alan Wake 2 would be a "dream," a 2020 publishing deal with Epic Games may have helped set the wheels in motion for the sequel. Remedy has its hands full right now with six games in production, one of which has been described as the studio's "most ambitious" game yet and the other is a "AAA" game that has been in the pre-production phase since March 2020.

At the time, Remedy mentioned that a "new, smaller-scale project" that is set in the same series was also in the works. It's worth noting that Remedy acquired the rights to the Alan Wake series from Microsoft, and the property is headed to a flatscreen near you as a live-action Alan Wake TV show is in development.