AdditionAlan: Remedy On Couches, GFWL
A couple of days ago, Remedy confirmed the rumour that Alan Wake would be at last be seeing a PC version. Our man Dan Griddled-octopus managed to coax a few (rather evasive) words on that subject out of Aki Järvilehto, Executive Vice President at Remedy, but before he could escape we sent Dan back with a couple of particularly burning additional questions. Specifically: that infamous "Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen" comment and on whether there's a risk of Games For Windows Live. Did we get answers? Um. Sort of.
RPS: That couch quote. Has that changed?
Aki Järvilehto: First of all, that's not our quote. With regard to why we are bringing it out on PC. There's two reasons for that; now with Steam, we can do something like this, which we think is fairly awesome. At the same time, from a time perspective sometimes the stars just align that way and you have the possibility of doing something. We're super-excited that we put out both games.
RPS: Right. Do you think certain games are more suited to the PC or the couch?
Aki Järvilehto: Thinking about distribution, games do have to reflect the platform that they're built on. With Alan Wake PC, obviously we've spent a lot of time fine-tuning the control mechanisms, so it works well on PC and is an exciting, gripping experience, so you can focus on the storyline without struggling with the controls. I'm really impressed with, when you turn up all the graphics on a modern PC, I'm really impressed with what you'll see there.
RPS: The other question is slightly desperate; can you promise there will be no Games for Windows Live?
Aki Järvilehto: (laughs) We don't want to comment on other platforms. Today Remedy are supporting three platforms; Xbox 360, Steam and iOS. Those are the platforms we currently support. Do we plan on supporting more platforms in the future? Well, who in the industry wouldn't? With regard to the specific question about GFWL, I think it would be unfair to comment at that right now.
RPS: I think we're more concerned because certain games, even on Steam, still include GFWL functionality. Is that going to be involved?
Aki Järvilehto: Alan Wake PC will be released on Steam using Steam's technology. Whether it will support any additional technologies in the future remains to be seen.