'There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic Publishing,' Remedy says in defense of Epic's deals with developers: 'The publishing deal with Epic was very fair to Remedy'

If I was to put this in pro wrestling terms, I would say the Triple Threat match has become a surprise Fatal Four-Way, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I mean that Remedy Entertainment says Alan Wake 2 would not exist without Epic Publishing. Does that clear things up for you?

Okay, maybe not, so let's recap. The whole thing began when New Blood honcho Dave Oshry said the studio's stealth FPS Blood West saw a 200% increase in sales on Steam while it was available for free on the Epic Games Store over the holidays: "Turns out having your game be free on Epic is great advertising for Steam sales!" In response, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney took the high road, saying sometimes Steam comes out on top, sometimes Epic does, "but one thing is constant on every transaction: gamers and developers win by having more options and better deals."

That sparked a reaction from Larian Studios publishing chief Michael Douse, who retweeted Sweeney to say that although Epic fully funded the development of Alan Wake 2, keeping the game off of Steam may have done more harm than good in the long run: "This altruistic pro-developer talk doesn't sit well when Remedy seemingly went into financial crisis because they couldn't tap Steam for AW2 sales suffering potentially hundreds of millions in lost revenue."

Which brings us to today's admittedly-kinda-torqued analogy: Like the Undertaker showing up at Wrestlemania 40, Remedy has now entered the ring.

"Hi. There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic Publishing," the studio wrote. "The publishing deal with Epic was very fair to Remedy. While these complex deals can often take even a year to reach their conclusion, and may not always be fair to the developer, this one was. And it only took months to get done. Epic Games was, and is, an excellent partner to us. Steam or no Steam."

XUnlike the world of rasslin', there are no faces or heels here. Douse is at least potentially correct to the extent that Alan Wake 2 may have sold much better than it did if it was on Steam. It took more than a year before the game started to turn a profit for Remedy.

But Remedy's satisfaction with the deal seems legit. It had no obligation to speak up in defense of Epic here (although it never hurts to be nice), but more to the point this isn't the first time it's done so. In 2023, Remedy communications director Thomas Puha threw some pretty serious praise to Epic on X, writing, "They let us make the game we wanted. Nothing but supportive. Epic's production team especially KILLED it on Alan Wake 2. They really care. Never have I read so much good feedback from milestones and have producers play so much of the game constantly."

In a follow-up post, Douse wrote, "Realistically I think if you want to be consistent in dev positive messaging you just take an easy PR W by amending the contract to allow them to drop the game on Steam now everyone has made their money and the drop-off in UA has made that angle negligible."

Remedy's hit shooter Control originally launched as an Epic Games Store exclusive in 2019 and came to Steam a year later, but that game was published by 505, prior to Remedy acquiring the property in 2024. Alan Wake 2 came out on Epic in October 2023 and is still not available on Steam.