At least you can still buy Alan Wake Remastered (Picture: Remedy)
Sometimes fans can get a little too obsessed about a favourite video game, as one inadvertently buys some very expensive Alan Wake wallpaper.
Although last year’s Alan Wake 2 was acclaimed by many we can’t say we were particularly keen and given both it and the first entry were not big sellers it’s clear the series is something of an acquired taste. But those that do like it tend to really like it.
Even so, there’s probably no fan more extreme than ‘Alisa’, an AV technician who bought two boxes of promotion cards for the original Alan Wake on Xbox 360, which cost her $240 (£190).
The boxes contained 4,000 download codes for the game, but the problem is that, after testing 20 of them, she found out that none of them worked.
The Xbox 360 online store isn’t due to shut down until July 29 this year, so in theory the codes should’ve worked, but when Alisa contacted Xbox customer support they told her that they had never been activated.
Most digital download codes have an expiry date, which is often much shorter than you’d expect, so given the game is 14 years old it’s not clear that they would’ve worked anyway.
‘I imagine that these download cards originate from a game store that was shut down at some point, and for one reason or another had way too many Alan Wake download cards left on their shelf,’ Alisa told PCGamesN.
‘The short answer is ‘it’s funny,’’ she said, when asked why she bought them in the first place. ‘The long answer is that I’m currently in the process of making an Alan Wake 2 fan video that is inspired by Alan Wake 2’s live action cinematics, and as soon as I saw the eBay listing for 4,000 Alan Wake download cards, I had a vision in my mind for a scene that would use an absurd amount of those things.
‘After that’s done, I’ll probably cover a wall in my room with the cards, because that sounds funny. Also, I just really love Alan Wake.’
At no point does she seem to mention giving them to other people, but maybe she assumes they don’t have an Xbox 360 anymore. Not that it matters.
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Although Alan Wake has never been that successful (it’s pretty obvious why the store had too many cards left) the sequel’s critical acclaim has made it a faster seller than the original, with over 1 million sales.
That’s not a lot for what seemed to be a fairly expensive game, but Remedy currently has four new projects underway: Control 2, a Control multiplayer spin-off, remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, and an unannounced ‘co-operative PvE shooter’ that used to be a live service game but no longer is.
There’s been no mention of Alan Wake 3 yet but it does seem fairly inevitable. And since Control is set in the same shared universe there’ll likely be lots of references to the series in Control 2 – if not a cameo from Alan and/or Saga Anderson.
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