Alan Wake Remastered
On Sunday, retail listings for Alan Wake Remastered were spotted on Rakuten Taiwan. Spotted by Twitter's Wario 64, these listings appear to have been removed. However, it wasn't a data error, rather a date error, as games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad confirmed on the thread that the remaster "will be announced next week". It isn't a great surprise to see this remaster surface again, as it was spotted on an Epic Games Store update in June.
Gaming site NintendoPal has some interesting technical background info about Alan Wake Remastered. Citing its own sources, the site says that ironically there won't be a Nintendo version (a cloud streaming version might be made available), but gamers on PCs and beefy modern consoles can look forward to the following:
- Alan Wake Remastered will use the Northlight Engine by Remedy Entertainment, previously used in Control.
- The game supports ray-tracing for reflections on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC, but not on last-generation consoles.
- Last-generation consoles will benefit from higher resolution and QoL changes but no ray-tracing.
- The remaster will support 60 FPS.
Watch out for the official remaster announcement in the next few days.
Update: Alan Wake Remastered is now confirmed:
"Today, Remedy Entertainment announced Alan Wake Remastered, a fully remastered version of the 2010 classic. Published by Epic Games Publishing, Alan Wake Remastered will feature the complete Alan Wake experience – including the main game and two expansions, The Signal and The Writer – in all-new rendered 4K visuals, as well as new commentary from creative director Sam Lake.
Alan Wake Remastered will launch in fall 2021, and will be available on PC on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4/Pro, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Xbox One S and Xbox One X. With the original game having launched on Xbox 360 and arriving on PC a few years later, this will be the first time ever that Alan Wake will be available to PlayStation users. For existing fans of the game, it’s an opportunity to experience the best version of Alan Wake yet."
Mass Effect might move to Unreal Engine 5
According to an EA job listing, and EA insiders talking to Venture Beat, the next Mass Effect game might eschew the Frostbite engine, instead adopting Unreal Engine 5.
The story goes that BioWare built the first three Mass Effect games using Unreal, but EA wanted the franchise to switch to its own Frostbite, originally developed for Battlefield, saving royalty payments. However, UE5 might provide irresistible – though everything is still on the table – due to various superior features such as dealing with complex ambient world animation, and the work Epic continues to do in developing and future-proofing UE.
With Mass Effect 5 not expected until at least 2025, Frostbite might be a little old and creaky by that time, so the UE5 move would be prudent for game quality and portability, even if there are licensing fees.
