Alan Wake killed by Roy Orbison

Remedy Entertainment's third-person spooker Alan Wake [official site] will receive a 90% discount on Steam this weekend, right before it gets pulled from stores - possibly forever. The Max Payne creators says Alan Wake has to go because its music licenses are expiring. Pop songs play at the end of each chapter, see, which means that Alan Wake was killed by a conspiracy including Roy Orbison, Nick Cave (I've always said those mates of his are some real bad seeds!), and David Bowie. If you already own Alan Wake or buy now, you will still get to download and play after it's pulled from sale.

Alan Wake, to refresh your memory, is a third-person shooter about an author who battles shadowy monsters after his wife disappears during a holiday to a small town in the Pacific Northwest. To bump off baddies, Al first needs to burn off their shadows with his torch or the game's wonderful smart bomb of a flare gun. Continuing Remedy's penchant for pastiche, it's a bit Stephen King and a touch Twin Peaks as Big Al finds himself caught up in mysteries surrounding a book he can't remember writing. It hit Xbox 360 in 2010 then PC in 2012. It's not a good shooter or a great story but it does have some nice ideas and a lot of forest and water.

I didn't finish Alan Wake when I played it on Xbox but for £2.30-ish, yeah, go on.

"We are looking into relicensing the music for Alan Wake, but have no timeframe for this," Remedy said in a Q&A today.

So, faced with an uncertain future, they're throwing Alan Wake's wake. Alan Wake, its DLC bits, and its semi-sequel Alan Wake's American Nightmare will all have 90% discounts on Steam. The sale will start at 6pm on Saturday and end on Monday. After that, it'll vanish into the mists like Brigadoon.

American Nightmare will still be sold after this, mind, as its licenses are sound. "Remedy negotiated the music licensing for Alan Wake's American Nightmare, we did not negotiate the licensing for Alan Wake's licensed music," Remedy explained.

Alan Wake is also sold on GOG, and will vanish from there too, but Remedy say they don't have any control over discounts (or the lack thereof) on GOG.

Update: GOG got in touch to tell us that yup, they'll discount Alan Wake this weekend too. If you want a DRM-free version, voila!

One might draw a connection between Alan Wake's David Lynch influences, Roy Orbison killing Alan Wake, Laura Palmer being found dead, wrapped in plastic, and Ulli's Roy Orbison In Clingfilm stories but to write it an artful way would be showing off and distract from the Roy Orbison in clingfilm stories, and all I really want is for you to read those Roy Orbison clingfilm stories, so we'll skip that and you'll go read them, okay? Ok.