Alan Wake 1 was a commercial flop. Other publishers thought the IP was a one-way ticket to losses. The Epic deal wasn’t the first time Remedy tried making AW2, they tried to talk Microsoft into it at first but they refused to touch the IP which led to Quantum Break instead.
It’s not that publishers didn’t trust Remedy so much as they wanted them to do other IPs instead of wasting money on a passion project like Alan Wake.
Additionally to the original Alan Wake there was also American Nightmare. I think that game did not help convincing publishers that the next Alan Wake won’t be a flop.
Yes, though if I recall right even that game was a compromise of “Remedy wanted to make an actual sequel but Microsoft didn’t want to fund that so an Xbox Live Arcade low-budget thing was all they had to settle for”.
Alan Wake 1 was a commercial flop. Other publishers thought the IP was a one-way ticket to losses. The Epic deal wasn’t the first time Remedy tried making AW2, they tried to talk Microsoft into it at first but they refused to touch the IP which led to Quantum Break instead.
It’s not that publishers didn’t trust Remedy so much as they wanted them to do other IPs instead of wasting money on a passion project like Alan Wake.
Additionally to the original Alan Wake there was also American Nightmare. I think that game did not help convincing publishers that the next Alan Wake won’t be a flop.
Yes, though if I recall right even that game was a compromise of “Remedy wanted to make an actual sequel but Microsoft didn’t want to fund that so an Xbox Live Arcade low-budget thing was all they had to settle for”.