Alan Wake PC: The First Interview

Our man Dan Griliopoulos was at the Alan Wake PC announcement earlier today, and immediately managed to pin down Aki Järvilehto, Executive Vice President at Remedy for a few questions. And some very, very short answers. Tackled: why now, what'll be different on PC, whether there'll be any new content, whether the new Wake game American Nightmare might come to PC, and whether or not Aki likes being asked questions like that. We don't entirely believe his reply to that one.

RPS: Why release it now?

Aki Järvilehto: I think it's more related to the fact that there are many digital channels we can do use this on now. It wasn't previously possible. Now that we have the possibility, we just had to go for it.

RPS: Microsoft traditionally are protective of their exclusives. Why now?

Aki Järvilehto: We're doing with co-operation from Microsoft, we do have a very good relationship with them, so we're happy about that.

RPS: It's good it's coming to Steam too, something that has a very wide distribution rather than a small percentage of the market.

Aki Järvilehto: We're very excited about Steam as well, it's a good channel. It's great to get the game out there, finally.

RPS: Will there be Steamworks integration?

Aki Järvilehto: Yes, it will.

RPS: Will there be any new content?

Aki Järvilehto: No, it's a one-to-one match. OBviously, there's a lot of things we're doing in terms of adapting the game, the gameplay, the controller, to make it different.

RPS: Was there any DLC on Xbox?

Aki Järvilehto: Yes, there were two DLCs, The Writer and The Signal. Both releases of DLC will be shipping at release.

RPS: They won't be included in the PC version for free?

Aki Järvilehto: We have to see. We haven't decided about that.

RPS: It's releasing in Q1 2012. How long it's been co-developed for? Since the beginning?

Aki Järvilehto: We'll have to see what the exact timing is going to be. We've been working on that and many different projects for the last few months. One of them was here (the new Alan Wake spin-off on Xbox Live), and some of those are coming out right now and some are coming out later. It's always exciting, not just to talk about the PC one but also to talk about Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

RPS: Will that be coming to PC?

Aki Järvilehto: Right now we're only talking about XBLA.

RPS: So it will support PC-grade textures and the latest DirectX?

Aki Järvilehto: The experience of running it on a high-end PC, with a ninja set-up, is such a big difference. On a large display, on a high-end PC, it looks gorgeous.

RPS: Would you prefer to pay it on PC?

Aki Järvilehto: I love to play it on both platforms. It was a blast on Xbox and it's running well on PC.

RPS: Do you get tired of being asked questions you can't possibly answer?

Aki Järvilehto: I love it.

RPS: Thanks for your time.