Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 Isn’t The Sweet Baby Inc. Success It Was Touted To Be

Alan Wake 2, the survival horror video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games Publishing, was released in October 2023. This sequel to Alan Wake (2010) follows best-selling novelist Alan Wake, who has been trapped in an alternate dimension for 13 years. To escape, he writes a horror story involving FBI Special Agent Saga Anderson.

When the controversy surrounding toxic DEI narrative consultancy Sweet Baby Inc. exploded, gamers started tracking all the video games in which Sweet Baby Inc. was involved. Sweet Baby Inc. is self-described as:"Founded in 2018, Sweet Baby Inc. is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. Our mission is to tell better, more empathetic stories while diversifying and enriching the video games industry. We aim to make games more engaging, more fun, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone."

It soon became clear that, apart from diversifying games, none of Sweet Baby Inc.’s self-proclaimed aims were being met. Instead, Sweet Baby Inc.'s involvement pretty much guaranteed that the game would be a flop. See “Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League,” for example.

It turned out that Sweet Baby Inc. was also involved in Alan Wake 2’s development. According to their website: “We worked on Character Arc, Voice and Sensitivity Reading.” Sweet Baby Inc. may also have been responsible for race-swapping Saga Anderson, replacing the original actress Malla Malmivaara with “The Idol” actress Melanie Liburd. Initially introduced as an Easter egg in Remedy's 2016 game Quantum Break, FBI agents Alex Casey and Saga Anderson were portrayed by Alan Wake and Alan Wake II Director Sam Lake and Finnish actress/singer Malla Malmivaara, respectively. This casting was officially confirmed by Lake himself in December 2015, when he tweeted, "FBI Agents Saga Anderson & Alex Casey hard at work, looking for a missing writer," along with the hashtags #QuantumBreak and #AlanWake.

The usual suspects at Kotaku and the rest of the access media, however, were quick to promote Alan Wake 2 as a Sweet Baby Inc. success. They claimed that the video game was a huge success. The reality, however, is that Alan Wake 2 is yet another failure for Sweet Baby Inc.

Remedy, the developers of Alan Wake 2, recently published their Half year financial report for January-June 2024. Reading between the lines it turns out that Alan Wake 2 isn’t the huge Sweet Baby Inc. success it was touted to be by the access media.

Regarding Alan Wake 2, the report states: “One highlight of the quarter was the release of the Night Springs expansion for Alan Wake 2. The press reviews and fan feedback for the expansion have been excellent. In June, Remedy and Epic Games announced that the Physical Deluxe Edition of Alan Wake 2 is coming out in October, and a Collector’s Edition will ship in December. At the time of publishing this report, Alan Wake 2 has recouped most of its development and marketing expenses.”

In other words, almost a year after the game's release, Alan Wake 2 still hasn’t turned a profit. Instead, Remedy is still in the process of recovering development and marketing costs. It turns out that once again, legacy media outlets have been misleading gamers. Let us know in the comments what you think about the legacy media’s lying.