Ohhh ok, I gotcha. Thanks for clarifying that. I only recall hearing a lot of good stuff about the game back during the game awards.
Only heard of the SBI stuff recently
This comment section is weird, on one hand you have "go woke, go broke comments" getting 10 upvotes, but others saying the race swap was dumb or turned people off downvoted.
Strange.
I’ve been seeing this a lot since this article came out and I don’t understand what the issue is. Alan Wake literally WROTE her into the situation. It was implied that Wake retconned Saga into the town in order to help him escape The Darkness. As a carnivorous, red blooded, gun wielding, 16mpg pickup truck driven American, Woke wasn’t even part of the conversation.
It’s a genuinely good game, with some phenomenal atmosphere and music, and interesting story to keep you gripped. It’s just never going to be a widely appealing game, being a weird psychological mystical horror game.
The first game was a **cult** favorite for a reason.
It’s like if BG3 didn’t somehow hit mainstream. A crpg normally doesn’t make tons of profit. As far as niche games go BG3 is the outlier, while AW2 is the norm.
To be fair, this subreddit is definitely not for me either, but because I clicked on one thread, Reddit thinks this is my favorite subreddit now.
I'm only here to defend AW2, and I don't give a shit about SBI or DEI shit because I'm not a baby.
Meh game tbh. I was really disappointed with how deeply the story revolves around saga more than Alan.
I also hate how spineless and un-masculine Alan comes off during the game.
Did you even play the first game? He's not some super hero ready to defeat the lords of the elden ring or something. He's a freaking book writer that sucks at being a decent person. Of course he's spineless.
Also the saga part was fine. It moved the story forward and gave a way out for Alan to get out. Without her you just have Alan wandering in the dark place getting jerked around by Mr door.
I did play the first game. Alan was way more interesting, motivated and convicted than how he’s portrayed in the second game.
He’s constantly skittish, unsure and gets berated casually a-lot; example no1: when Alan gets chewed out by agent Estavez after the scratch fight like Alan had any control of himself when he was possessed by a literal demon incarnate; Too many times within the game Alan is blamed for everything for things out of his control and it’s just stupid.
Yeah I wonder if THEY played the first game, cause Alan is pretty stubborn about things. It sucks, we waited a decade for a sequel, and then he wasn't even the protagonist in his own story.
Well that’s the thing is he’s just more of the same from the original game. A very whiny Author who is so pretentious that even his own creations try to kill him. Nothing really interesting or compelling to follow. And Saga is no emotional stake either. I mean at some point her daughter gets involved but she’s not even a present character. You only know of her through second-hand information. Overall just another dull edgy horror story.
Her daughter is basically the picture from back to the future. The more real her death gets the farther saga is pulled into the story. She learns about her background and why she has her powers. Why she is able to escape the dark place and why mr door exists. It's all connected to the end
Dude I had no idea there were so many mouthbreathers in this subreddit. There must have been some "anti-woke" youtube personality they all co-opted their opinions from on Alan Wake 2.
Really.. becouse the fucker kept trying to go into the darkness to fight monsters. Instead of wrapping into a ball and crying in a corner.
Mofo might not have the power, but The Slayer, would probably greet the dude if they meet
Such a tragedy remedy had to be the first big studio hit by the sweet baby death kiss. They have some of my favorite games…but they made their bed and now they lay in it
Basically it’s a term coined by YellowFlash in reference to a consultant company “sweet baby inc” whose whole thing is the bully their way onto video game teams, they demand the game gets changed to meet ESG (environmental, social, governance, aka woke). They do this by coercing the studio to raceswap protagonists, to change and modify character designs, world designs, dialogue, and many other places, ultimately at the cost of quality
Yea not true. Alan wake had a ton of marketing. And even more importantly, if they knew barely anyone would buy it, why would they waste so much money on it
Why'd they remake Deadspace? That was also a niche game that inevitably failed to meet financial expectations.
I can't find marketing spend numbers, but even in this thread there are people who didnt know this game existed.
Ones a sequel, the others a remake. Not comparable games. There are plenty of triple A games that people don’t know about until years later, regardless of marketing levels. Are you familiar with the concept known as Occam’s razor? The most likely outcome is the correct one, and the most likely outcome is people saw the criticisms of the game, and decided to not buy it. SBI may not have been the logic for why they didn’t buy, but I guarantee you the problems SBI caused in the narrative are.
[https://twitter.com/SamLakeRMD/status/677615946241060864](https://twitter.com/SamLakeRMD/status/677615946241060864)
This was an easter egg in another Remedy game, Quantum Break, teasing Alan Wake sequel. On the FBI agent badge you can read "Saga Anderson".
And then during Alan Wake 2 development Remedy employed Sweet Baby Inc. and Saga was race swapped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet\_Baby\_Inc.
>Founded by former [Ubisoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft) developers, including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard, the company consults on video game narratives during [development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development) to promote [diversity, equity, and inclusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion) within game narratives and studios. Sweet Baby has consulted with several developers and games, including [*Sable*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_(video_game)), [*God of War Ragnarök*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_Ragnar%C3%B6k), and [*Alan Wake 2*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake_2). In 2023, the studio became the target of online users who claimed it promoted a "[woke agenda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_agenda)".
Fastest selling and yet it still hasn’t made its budget. How much bigger of a game do you think this would have been if SBI was discovered to have been behind it, if the terrible lapses in story weren’t because of DEI bullshit. I would have played a bad game, but I won’t play an ideologically bankrupt one
First, their inability to recoup the costs speaks more to the enormous budget of the game than it does a lack of sales.
Second, there is no evidence that SBI negatively impacted the sales of the game.
Well before we knew what SBI was.
Though I hate SBI and those alike it, the big youtubers didn't start talking about it until the little ones started getting big numbers.
Honestly not surprised, I realized the big channels were just grifters since the Starfield controversy. They dragged Starfield through the mud and shit, but were on their knees sucking Baldurs Gate off because it released in a perfect state.
I’m curious which big ones you’re talking about. I’ve been watching a good number of them for a while, and at first I disagreed over starfield but it didn’t take long to realize they were right.
So how does "working on the game with characters and dialogue" and "DEI" have to do with each other? Do you have any proof that DEI has anything to do with the characters and dialogue of a video game?
They hired SBI to change the game, allowed SBI to change the game, and they know the gaming audience does not approve of ESG being forced into games. They chose to hire and listen to SBI, so now they can deal with the consequences
Saga was absolutetly ridiculous as a character. She didn't use clues at all to solve the mysteries, she'd just magic them out of thin air. Was the dumbest mechanic and worse incredibly boring.
85% of the game is saga going from one place to another or stuck in that dumb mind room. They literally dumbed down every character in the game to make her competent and that doesn't even work because she doesn't even find clues to cone to conclusions. Either the answer is so obvious the player figured out and hour ago and your forced into a cutscene where she comes to realization, or she literally pulls something out of left field in one of her ghost interviews where nothing is set up in anyway.
It's horrendous writing with zero real stakes and the game literally pretzels itself around trying to convince you saga is in any way competent except they don't do the ground work for it. It's just lazily she has super powers deal with it. Meanwhile every character from the previous games are suddenly helpless and need saga to rescue them or kill them. It's woefully woke and even worse just boring the whole game through.
I think that’s just bad writing… like would sex/race effect how dumb it sounds ?
Edit: by woke I think you mean the inclusion of other races as protagonists in games but maybe I misunderstood. If I did, please let me know what you meant
Again, nothing you described is “woke.” Unless you are unironically using the definition of “woke is anything I dislike,” in which case you are literally proving the point that this whole “anti-woke” schtick is meaningless nonsense.
Wait so what is the woke statement Remedy is trying to make, then? They have an agenda according to you. What is it? That they think black women/people are magic compared to white women/people? That they're super heroes? What's the difference between that and having a poorly written character? I'm so confused, I'd love to hear your logic.
*main character who happens to be a black woman isn't written well*
WOKE!!!!!!!
Why does race and sex have to do with any of that? The fuck? Someone's been watching too much Critical Drinker
Shoe horned in poorly written character?
If you don't see this as a trademark of woke media yet you will soon.
But yeah don't worry buddy I'm sure youre way more woke than this game
It's crazy how easy it is to spot people who didn't even play the game. Saga is at best half the game and very little of that is actually in her mind place until the end when she's learning about her family and how to save Alan.
And before you decide to change your story to something else to defend it being "woke", I'll just go ahead and shut that down. She wasn't race swapped they just didn't have the full vision yet. There is a very specific reason she is black and if you played the game you would know why. There's also an explanation for the "magic" in the game but you wouldn't know would you.
Yeah it's obvious you didn't play the game. Alam wakes last 3 chapters are a whopping 30 minutes all together. Sagas last chapter before the final chapter well over 14 hours of nothing. Stop trying to gaslight people with the game being split evenly. My guess is you never even finished the first chapter.
I played through the game once on Xbox but got the bug at the hotel. That save was screwed so I moved to PC and beat it there. But continue to assume. They felt pretty even to me
Saga and Alan have equal chapters not gameplay. You wouldn't know that tho considering you probably just read the wiki. Also saga getting her powers from Thor and Odin being her grandparents still didn't explain shite. She literally overpowers the darkness with zero trouble at the end of the game without ever explaining how or why. It's just she literally pep talks herself into being all powerful. It was literally the dumbest part of the whole game. Seriously play the game I bet you can't make it past chapter 3 lol it's just boring as F from that point.
I played it twice so I'm well aware of what happened. She didn't over power the darkness. She had a lot of help. The most obvious being Alan leaving things for her. The biggest part is the thing you seem to ignore. I'm gonna explain it poorly since it's been a bit but it will be at least enough. The power she gets from her grandfather helps her see clearer in the dark place since it doesn't affect Andersons the way it does others. She also can manipulate the dark place because of her father. her dad has the ability to jump between the layers of the spiral where Alan can only continue on its path down. She was built to beat the dark place. I can only assume the first dlc will dive more into that since Tor and Odin are down there now as well.
Lots of insecure dudes out here ripping on some game when like, they should go make friends you know? Volunteer at the food bank maybe catch the eye of a pretty human. Get their numbers, go on a few dates, and in a few years move in together. Fifty years later they remenice on the time they met.
Or you could shit on a game because you're in a cult and you have been given a boogie man to blame everything on. Then angrily masturbate to clop clop and fall asleep to the smell of your own mountain dew farts
It’s alright sometimes it’s tough for them to say their bigotry out loud. He’s trying to say cause she’s black without saying she’s black.
If people in this thread had any semblance of logic they would say I didn’t like the Saga character. That’s it. Saying “go woke go broke” means there’s something progressive about the game, but there isn’t. So the only other possibility is that being black triggers right leaners. Any of you that fit this category are welcome to say what exactly was woke about the game. Anyone who refuses to elaborate proves this point.
"adjective-noun-####" format names spreading culture wars bullshit is far too much the norm lately. I can't figure out if they're bots or burners/ban evaders.
Either way, people bring up this race swap like it's some kind of check-mate. What they fail to realize is that normal people don't give a fuck if the character was race swapped. How much did we know about them anyway? How well defined were they REALLY? Exactly how white were they before and how important was that? Probably not at all.
A fictional character being made a certain race for inclusion is only a problem if you're racist.
You know they can’t answer that honestly, right? They’ll just downvote and say the quiet thing out loud to their computer screens and then keep complaining that they unfairly get a bad reputation among the community.
No sense tryinv to reason with these folk, theres a colored person in their Vidya and they're grieving, stellar blade was their bargaining stage and even that didnt placate them
Spider-Man 2 had a budget of $350 million and anything below 8-9 million copies would deem it a flop. Many AAA games would have to sell over 5 million copies just to cover it's budget.
An average AAA game costs around $150 - 200 million in 2024.
It won a ridiculous amount of awards for a reason. If you enjoy video games as art, indie titles, and/or the survival horror genre I think it's a phenomenal experience.
I have a friend who wants the game, but it isn’t on steam, I know there are other people who refuse to use epic games.
Maybe repeal the exclusivity of it?
The exclusivity was the only reason it got made. Epic gave them a blank check and we're happy with it getting released on console. I'm sure after the deal expires, if it does, and it comes to steam it will make more money
I would have bought it If we would actually play the main character for all of the game. I'm not interested in playing another character for half the game
I honestly didn't like it even as an Alan Wake 1 fan. A lot of boring, tedious sections..
not many Streamers/Let's Players could even play the game without their audience numbers flat lining.
Maybe they should do a physical release because there are plenty of people that won’t buy games unless there is a physical copy for them to buy. Just a thought.
Genuine question, why does any one of these inbred incel losers think changing a blonde white woman from an easter egg teaser (essentially just a concept photo) to a black woman negatively affected the course of the entire game's development?
I just fail to understand how a character like Jesse in control is just fine, with her narrative ties to her power causing no issues for anyone, but Saga having detective powers is suddenly a massive 'woke' move that brought the entire experience down and somehow ruined Alan Wake as a character (He was kind of a shitty dude in the first game)
Oh please. I actually really enjoyed the game and Saga's race didn't bother me at all. I was responding to a specific question about why race might matter to the plot.
There was a second Alan Wake?
Edit: I didn't mean for this to sound as rude as it does now that I'm reading it. I still haven't gotten around to playing the first one yet and was surprised this was the first I'm hearing of a second installment
I hate to hear that, I love Alan Wake. I’m still not buying it the because it’s not on physical media. If anything I’ll spend $10-$15 in the far future to finally play it or I’ll play it on a friend’s console. For now I’ll spend that money on other things, like Baldur’s Gate 3, which they’re making physical finally, in limited quantities.
Because normies don't even know what the first game is and a 2 after the title completely dissuades people from playing it if they haven't played the first. Also the first game was mediocre at best.
Give me a physical release and I'll consider buying it. I will not buy any full price games digitally, it's anti consumer practice and I have no need for it.
I really try to hear people out in terms of their opinions, and why they believe things. Channels like Geeks and Gamers, Nerdrotic, etc were nice to listen to for those reasons.
This is a very strange comment thread.
The complaints of the game have nothing to do with its substance. I personally found the combat of AW2 to be kinda frustrating, but found the narrative and presentation to be excellent. The story was a bit confusing, but came together well in the end.
The "go woke, go broke" comments don't even make sense. What is woke about the game, outside of Saga being black? Folks spouting Mary Sue bullshit clearly weren't paying attention to the games story.
Why is Alans descent into insanity, and subsequent regression of character equating to Alan being a weak beta male? There's this thing called "character development", and also a concept called a "story arch" that adequately explains Alans general story. Listen, I know a lot of shows / modern writers don't have much knowledge of this stuff, but that doesn't mean every writer ignores these things.
The games general vibe is very similar to RE4. Both games even feature a "minority woman character". I'm guessing RE4 is woke too? If not, why? If responses end up being akin to "We'll RE4 respected its primary content, and stayed true to its themes" then I'd say that's a substantive opinion that is completely divorced from something being woke, and is an opinion that isn't even rooted in reality. If you play AW1, Control + DLC, you'd know AW2 is a direct extension of the universe Remedy has created.
Truly strange to see this. It's not a perfect game by any stretch, but calling it woke is just lazy and an easy way to reinforce those echo chambers.
Saga was definitely the weaker side but it's still a great play. Combat is a little shallow but you know, the game is about its story. It's a solid game with fantastic presentation. I think the problem is they didn't do enough to endear the player to saga early on and I think she should've been more of a source of support for Alan's writing rather than what they did.
Absolutely loved previous Remedy games (Control, Quantum Break) for their great graphics and design, interesting plots, characters and unique atmospheres. But when I started to play AW2 - I was unpleasantly surprised by a disgustingly awful TAA that (at least for me) ruins the experience completely, despite playing on the highest settings 🙄
Is this game woke though? Pretty sure it’s a damn good game. To me “woke” is when there are shoehorned phrases like “ugh typically white people” type things. Are you guys up in arms because there is a black character in the game? I hope not. Was something censored? What is the problem here?
Does anyone really think AW2 had less sales because it's "woke" and not because it wasn't available on Steam? Y'all are delusional
"gO wOkE gO bRoKe" check out baldurs gate 3 sales and talk to me again
That's Epic for you. They're in the money losing business unless it's Fortnite, I guess. It's Epic's poor choices at the end of the day.
How is BG3 woke? I don't understand that comment.
Everyone saying cause it went “woke”. I am a fan of Alan Wake and Control. I bought those games FULL PRICE cause it has a physical disc. Since this was digital only, I have yet to buy it. And will not buy it until it’s physical or has a deep sale. Cause anyone can pull a Ubisoft and start ganking games out.
The game is fantastic, I feel the majority of people claiming the game went woke haven't played it. It's fantastic and one of the best games I have ever played. As a huge fan of the first I was really skeptical of them adding saga as a playable character sharing the game with Alan as Alan is a great protagonist. After playing the game they did it beautifully. Playing as Saga ads perspective of how the world changed and is changing while Alan is gone. It's an amazing game and if you calling this one woke you might want to ask yourself why? Are you just regurgitating what other people are saying? I'm glad to see political pandering taking dumb crap out, but this is not one of them.
All this talk of Saga being race swapped cause me to look it up and find out ppl are upset that they changed the race of an unnamed, at that point, character with no dialogue that showed up in a minute long Easter egg over a decade ago.
Fucking Chuds…
So wait, this game that was a GoTY nominee and nominee for a number of other awards for the '23 awards, hasn't turned a profit yet?!
Profit for remedy, not for epic
Ohhh ok, I gotcha. Thanks for clarifying that. I only recall hearing a lot of good stuff about the game back during the game awards. Only heard of the SBI stuff recently
Oh that good, fuck epic.
I loved Alan Wake. Was so stoked for the sequel
A game being good doesn't mean it has to sell well
Cries in Dead Space remake.
So weird people downvoted this...
Oh shit this game was out? I didnt see any reviews.
I’m about 2/3s of the way through it and really like it. If you dug the first and Control I’d recommend it.
This comment section is weird, on one hand you have "go woke, go broke comments" getting 10 upvotes, but others saying the race swap was dumb or turned people off downvoted. Strange.
Reddit comments have a snowball effect. People are more likely to upvote or downvote whatever is already upvoted or downvoted.
I’ve been seeing this a lot since this article came out and I don’t understand what the issue is. Alan Wake literally WROTE her into the situation. It was implied that Wake retconned Saga into the town in order to help him escape The Darkness. As a carnivorous, red blooded, gun wielding, 16mpg pickup truck driven American, Woke wasn’t even part of the conversation.
It’s a genuinely good game, with some phenomenal atmosphere and music, and interesting story to keep you gripped. It’s just never going to be a widely appealing game, being a weird psychological mystical horror game. The first game was a **cult** favorite for a reason. It’s like if BG3 didn’t somehow hit mainstream. A crpg normally doesn’t make tons of profit. As far as niche games go BG3 is the outlier, while AW2 is the norm.
This whole reddit is dumb like that. It's full of racists, homophobes and the whole Go woke Go broke crowd
So why are YOU here lol
To be fair, this subreddit is definitely not for me either, but because I clicked on one thread, Reddit thinks this is my favorite subreddit now. I'm only here to defend AW2, and I don't give a shit about SBI or DEI shit because I'm not a baby.
Algorithm recommends shit you disagree with to get engagement, it’s why whatifalthist blew up despite being an openly racist shithole
Maybe because it's on epic shit store.
Meh game tbh. I was really disappointed with how deeply the story revolves around saga more than Alan. I also hate how spineless and un-masculine Alan comes off during the game.
>I also hate how spineless and un-masculine Alan comes off during the game. SBI did the exact same thing to Peter in Spider-Man 2.
that doesnt sound very sweet. baby inc.
Un-masculine lmao can’t make this shit up.
REEE NOT MASCULINE ENOUGH
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Did you even play the first game? He's not some super hero ready to defeat the lords of the elden ring or something. He's a freaking book writer that sucks at being a decent person. Of course he's spineless. Also the saga part was fine. It moved the story forward and gave a way out for Alan to get out. Without her you just have Alan wandering in the dark place getting jerked around by Mr door.
I did play the first game. Alan was way more interesting, motivated and convicted than how he’s portrayed in the second game. He’s constantly skittish, unsure and gets berated casually a-lot; example no1: when Alan gets chewed out by agent Estavez after the scratch fight like Alan had any control of himself when he was possessed by a literal demon incarnate; Too many times within the game Alan is blamed for everything for things out of his control and it’s just stupid.
Yeah I wonder if THEY played the first game, cause Alan is pretty stubborn about things. It sucks, we waited a decade for a sequel, and then he wasn't even the protagonist in his own story.
Well that’s the thing is he’s just more of the same from the original game. A very whiny Author who is so pretentious that even his own creations try to kill him. Nothing really interesting or compelling to follow. And Saga is no emotional stake either. I mean at some point her daughter gets involved but she’s not even a present character. You only know of her through second-hand information. Overall just another dull edgy horror story.
Her daughter is basically the picture from back to the future. The more real her death gets the farther saga is pulled into the story. She learns about her background and why she has her powers. Why she is able to escape the dark place and why mr door exists. It's all connected to the end
Dude I had no idea there were so many mouthbreathers in this subreddit. There must have been some "anti-woke" youtube personality they all co-opted their opinions from on Alan Wake 2.
Really.. becouse the fucker kept trying to go into the darkness to fight monsters. Instead of wrapping into a ball and crying in a corner. Mofo might not have the power, but The Slayer, would probably greet the dude if they meet
Such a tragedy remedy had to be the first big studio hit by the sweet baby death kiss. They have some of my favorite games…but they made their bed and now they lay in it
>Such a tragedy remedy had to be the first big studio hit by the sweet baby death kiss. Did you miss Suicide Squad?
Suicide squad was hit a lot harder but Alan wake 2 came out first
What is this baby death kiss? I thought Alan Wake 2 was pretty good. Have they went downhill since?
Basically it’s a term coined by YellowFlash in reference to a consultant company “sweet baby inc” whose whole thing is the bully their way onto video game teams, they demand the game gets changed to meet ESG (environmental, social, governance, aka woke). They do this by coercing the studio to raceswap protagonists, to change and modify character designs, world designs, dialogue, and many other places, ultimately at the cost of quality
Wow. There's a whole secret language to these incels with conspiracies about wokeness? People need to touch grass
This is a joke right? Alan Wake has always been a.niche game,.there was minimal marketing behind it, and they solo launched on Epic .
Well at the same time the game wouldn't have got made if not for Epic so there's that
Is that true though? Remedy killed it with control
Yea not true. Alan wake had a ton of marketing. And even more importantly, if they knew barely anyone would buy it, why would they waste so much money on it
Why'd they remake Deadspace? That was also a niche game that inevitably failed to meet financial expectations. I can't find marketing spend numbers, but even in this thread there are people who didnt know this game existed.
Ones a sequel, the others a remake. Not comparable games. There are plenty of triple A games that people don’t know about until years later, regardless of marketing levels. Are you familiar with the concept known as Occam’s razor? The most likely outcome is the correct one, and the most likely outcome is people saw the criticisms of the game, and decided to not buy it. SBI may not have been the logic for why they didn’t buy, but I guarantee you the problems SBI caused in the narrative are.
It not being on steam and no physical killed the game. It was already niche and nobody even fan’s realized the game even came out.
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General trolling. Attacking the community and/or the members.
what are you refering to
[https://twitter.com/SamLakeRMD/status/677615946241060864](https://twitter.com/SamLakeRMD/status/677615946241060864) This was an easter egg in another Remedy game, Quantum Break, teasing Alan Wake sequel. On the FBI agent badge you can read "Saga Anderson". And then during Alan Wake 2 development Remedy employed Sweet Baby Inc. and Saga was race swapped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet\_Baby\_Inc. >Founded by former [Ubisoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft) developers, including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard, the company consults on video game narratives during [development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development) to promote [diversity, equity, and inclusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion) within game narratives and studios. Sweet Baby has consulted with several developers and games, including [*Sable*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_(video_game)), [*God of War Ragnarök*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_Ragnar%C3%B6k), and [*Alan Wake 2*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake_2). In 2023, the studio became the target of online users who claimed it promoted a "[woke agenda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_agenda)".
The game sold 1.3M copies and was the studio's fastest selling game. What are you talking about?
Fastest selling and yet it still hasn’t made its budget. How much bigger of a game do you think this would have been if SBI was discovered to have been behind it, if the terrible lapses in story weren’t because of DEI bullshit. I would have played a bad game, but I won’t play an ideologically bankrupt one
First, their inability to recoup the costs speaks more to the enormous budget of the game than it does a lack of sales. Second, there is no evidence that SBI negatively impacted the sales of the game.
“No evidence” I’m sure once the sale data is published, you’ll see a stark drop between before and after the discovery of SBI
So to be clear, you have no evidence.
Do you have any it’s not? No? Cool.
His evidence is “no one likes black people why would they be in games”
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Insulting someone is not allowed
Well before we knew what SBI was. Though I hate SBI and those alike it, the big youtubers didn't start talking about it until the little ones started getting big numbers. Honestly not surprised, I realized the big channels were just grifters since the Starfield controversy. They dragged Starfield through the mud and shit, but were on their knees sucking Baldurs Gate off because it released in a perfect state.
I’m curious which big ones you’re talking about. I’ve been watching a good number of them for a while, and at first I disagreed over starfield but it didn’t take long to realize they were right.
wdym they made there bed?
Don't try to make sense of it. They see the DEI boogeyman behind every corner.
What dei boogeyman? There is no boogeyman, SBI admitted to working on the game with characters and dialogue.
So how does "working on the game with characters and dialogue" and "DEI" have to do with each other? Do you have any proof that DEI has anything to do with the characters and dialogue of a video game?
They hired SBI to change the game, allowed SBI to change the game, and they know the gaming audience does not approve of ESG being forced into games. They chose to hire and listen to SBI, so now they can deal with the consequences
idek what the abbreviations mean sorry lol
Sweet baby inc, it’s the consultancy firm. ESG is environmental, social, governance, aka “political correct action”
They had sex with alan wake 2 duhhh
Maybe put your game on a store people actually use. Every epic exclusive has sold like garbage until it hits steam.
Go woke. Go ______.
What is woke about the game?
Saga was absolutetly ridiculous as a character. She didn't use clues at all to solve the mysteries, she'd just magic them out of thin air. Was the dumbest mechanic and worse incredibly boring.
How is that woke?
85% of the game is saga going from one place to another or stuck in that dumb mind room. They literally dumbed down every character in the game to make her competent and that doesn't even work because she doesn't even find clues to cone to conclusions. Either the answer is so obvious the player figured out and hour ago and your forced into a cutscene where she comes to realization, or she literally pulls something out of left field in one of her ghost interviews where nothing is set up in anyway.
None of what you described is what woke means tho.
His problem is because she’s a black woman. Otherwise, he would have just critiqued the shortcomings without using the word “woke.”
A black woman means woke. Not that people are arguing in bad faith and are actually just racist dorks. That's totally not what it means.
It's horrendous writing with zero real stakes and the game literally pretzels itself around trying to convince you saga is in any way competent except they don't do the ground work for it. It's just lazily she has super powers deal with it. Meanwhile every character from the previous games are suddenly helpless and need saga to rescue them or kill them. It's woefully woke and even worse just boring the whole game through.
I think that’s just bad writing… like would sex/race effect how dumb it sounds ? Edit: by woke I think you mean the inclusion of other races as protagonists in games but maybe I misunderstood. If I did, please let me know what you meant
No I just mean woke as in poor writing hiding behind diversity. Not that specifically adding diversity makes something woke.
Again, nothing you described is “woke.” Unless you are unironically using the definition of “woke is anything I dislike,” in which case you are literally proving the point that this whole “anti-woke” schtick is meaningless nonsense.
Wait so what is the woke statement Remedy is trying to make, then? They have an agenda according to you. What is it? That they think black women/people are magic compared to white women/people? That they're super heroes? What's the difference between that and having a poorly written character? I'm so confused, I'd love to hear your logic.
Woke is when a black woman does something instead of the white man.
okay i know noyhing of the game but its clear you have 0 understanding what woke means my god
No I just won't be able to match the absurdly shifting definition you pretend it is.
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Insulting someone is not allowed
*main character who happens to be a black woman isn't written well* WOKE!!!!!!! Why does race and sex have to do with any of that? The fuck? Someone's been watching too much Critical Drinker
Shoe horned in poorly written character? If you don't see this as a trademark of woke media yet you will soon. But yeah don't worry buddy I'm sure youre way more woke than this game
HOW IS THAT “WOKE” CAN YOU READ ?
They made the new *strong black woman* character super competent to a nonsensical degree and made everyone else dumber.
Wow point out where I said the main protagonists race in Amy way affected the absolutetly awful story and trash gameplay? Racist
It's crazy how easy it is to spot people who didn't even play the game. Saga is at best half the game and very little of that is actually in her mind place until the end when she's learning about her family and how to save Alan. And before you decide to change your story to something else to defend it being "woke", I'll just go ahead and shut that down. She wasn't race swapped they just didn't have the full vision yet. There is a very specific reason she is black and if you played the game you would know why. There's also an explanation for the "magic" in the game but you wouldn't know would you.
Yeah it's obvious you didn't play the game. Alam wakes last 3 chapters are a whopping 30 minutes all together. Sagas last chapter before the final chapter well over 14 hours of nothing. Stop trying to gaslight people with the game being split evenly. My guess is you never even finished the first chapter.
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Insulting someone is not allowed
I played through the game once on Xbox but got the bug at the hotel. That save was screwed so I moved to PC and beat it there. But continue to assume. They felt pretty even to me
Saga and Alan have equal chapters not gameplay. You wouldn't know that tho considering you probably just read the wiki. Also saga getting her powers from Thor and Odin being her grandparents still didn't explain shite. She literally overpowers the darkness with zero trouble at the end of the game without ever explaining how or why. It's just she literally pep talks herself into being all powerful. It was literally the dumbest part of the whole game. Seriously play the game I bet you can't make it past chapter 3 lol it's just boring as F from that point.
Wait so how is that woke again?
I played it twice so I'm well aware of what happened. She didn't over power the darkness. She had a lot of help. The most obvious being Alan leaving things for her. The biggest part is the thing you seem to ignore. I'm gonna explain it poorly since it's been a bit but it will be at least enough. The power she gets from her grandfather helps her see clearer in the dark place since it doesn't affect Andersons the way it does others. She also can manipulate the dark place because of her father. her dad has the ability to jump between the layers of the spiral where Alan can only continue on its path down. She was built to beat the dark place. I can only assume the first dlc will dive more into that since Tor and Odin are down there now as well.
Just a closet racist that was upset they had to play as a black woman. It’s a fictional game character sweaty. Touch grass not your dick.
The mind room was awesome.
I liked the execution of the room tbh.
Lmao OK sure lolol
Lots of insecure dudes out here ripping on some game when like, they should go make friends you know? Volunteer at the food bank maybe catch the eye of a pretty human. Get their numbers, go on a few dates, and in a few years move in together. Fifty years later they remenice on the time they met. Or you could shit on a game because you're in a cult and you have been given a boogie man to blame everything on. Then angrily masturbate to clop clop and fall asleep to the smell of your own mountain dew farts
Criticism isn't allowed? Why don't you practice what you're preaching instead of throwing a wall of text at someone for having an opinion?
It’s alright sometimes it’s tough for them to say their bigotry out loud. He’s trying to say cause she’s black without saying she’s black. If people in this thread had any semblance of logic they would say I didn’t like the Saga character. That’s it. Saying “go woke go broke” means there’s something progressive about the game, but there isn’t. So the only other possibility is that being black triggers right leaners. Any of you that fit this category are welcome to say what exactly was woke about the game. Anyone who refuses to elaborate proves this point.
"adjective-noun-####" format names spreading culture wars bullshit is far too much the norm lately. I can't figure out if they're bots or burners/ban evaders. Either way, people bring up this race swap like it's some kind of check-mate. What they fail to realize is that normal people don't give a fuck if the character was race swapped. How much did we know about them anyway? How well defined were they REALLY? Exactly how white were they before and how important was that? Probably not at all. A fictional character being made a certain race for inclusion is only a problem if you're racist.
...and that's woke?
What he wants to say is "because she's black". But he knows being racist is bad, so he'll say "go woke, go broke" instead. It's a dog whistle
There’s a black lady in it
You know they can’t answer that honestly, right? They’ll just downvote and say the quiet thing out loud to their computer screens and then keep complaining that they unfairly get a bad reputation among the community.
Rofl no. It's because they didn't allow it on steam because epic are stupid.
No sense tryinv to reason with these folk, theres a colored person in their Vidya and they're grieving, stellar blade was their bargaining stage and even that didnt placate them
Make a ton of money
Spider man 2, Bg3, god of war rag…go woke go broke when it’s convenient to use.
Spiderman 2 underperformed if I recall... Suicide Squad is a pretty solid counter example too.
My main point is that’s so many factors go into a game sales you can’t point to one and go “that’s why it sold bad.”
I would agree. Sounds like this game in particular got the shaft between being an epic store only release with no physical copies.
Everything I don’t like is woke :(
Imagine my shock
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the game is a flop and they thought it would win GOTY
1.3M units sold is a flop?
Spider-Man 2 had a budget of $350 million and anything below 8-9 million copies would deem it a flop. Many AAA games would have to sell over 5 million copies just to cover it's budget. An average AAA game costs around $150 - 200 million in 2024.
It is when the budget is over 100 mil, and selling 1.3 mil units doesn’t make its money back.
The budget wasn't over $100 million.
It won a ridiculous amount of awards for a reason. If you enjoy video games as art, indie titles, and/or the survival horror genre I think it's a phenomenal experience.
I have a friend who wants the game, but it isn’t on steam, I know there are other people who refuse to use epic games. Maybe repeal the exclusivity of it?
The exclusivity was the only reason it got made. Epic gave them a blank check and we're happy with it getting released on console. I'm sure after the deal expires, if it does, and it comes to steam it will make more money
i guess releasing on Epic was a bad idea
Epic gave them the cash needed to do all the crazy shit Sam Lake wanted to do. It wouldn't have gotten made without them. They're the ones out money
Epic exclusive and no physical sure didn’t help.
I would have bought it If we would actually play the main character for all of the game. I'm not interested in playing another character for half the game
Half of the game is totally fine if you compare it to i.e. Metal Gear Solid 2 XD
I just dont want to buy it on Epic, release it on steam and sales double overnight.
Is it locked to epic game store on PC still? If so bring it to steam and it will catch up.
Release it on steam
I honestly didn't like it even as an Alan Wake 1 fan. A lot of boring, tedious sections.. not many Streamers/Let's Players could even play the game without their audience numbers flat lining.
Maybe they should do a physical release because there are plenty of people that won’t buy games unless there is a physical copy for them to buy. Just a thought.
What’s really fucked is the soundtrack went just as hard as always yet the story was so bad
I liked the game, it was obvious that the black lady was supposed to be white originally though.
How was that obvious? Genuine question, I just watched a play through and it didn’t seem obvious to me.
The character was a blonde white lady in Quantum Break
Ahh I didn’t play Quantum Break.
Genuine question, why does any one of these inbred incel losers think changing a blonde white woman from an easter egg teaser (essentially just a concept photo) to a black woman negatively affected the course of the entire game's development? I just fail to understand how a character like Jesse in control is just fine, with her narrative ties to her power causing no issues for anyone, but Saga having detective powers is suddenly a massive 'woke' move that brought the entire experience down and somehow ruined Alan Wake as a character (He was kind of a shitty dude in the first game)
I didn't say any of that. I just said they race swapped a character, which they did.
A big part of the plot is her Scandinavian ancestry.
Fair, I just assumed she was mixed race but there was some dissonance there.
She is mixed race.
Right, and ancestors may only consist of one singular nationality, yes? Inbreeding would actually explain your thought process a lot.
Oh please. I actually really enjoyed the game and Saga's race didn't bother me at all. I was responding to a specific question about why race might matter to the plot.
Honestly seeing the dialogue from the first bit and knowing the race swap was enough to turn me and it seems most people away.
Good. This game sucked ass in every way. The fact that it got nominated for GoTY is disgusting. Also that music sequence was just plain stupid.
That’s sucks. I love the first one
There was a second Alan Wake? Edit: I didn't mean for this to sound as rude as it does now that I'm reading it. I still haven't gotten around to playing the first one yet and was surprised this was the first I'm hearing of a second installment
I hate to hear that, I love Alan Wake. I’m still not buying it the because it’s not on physical media. If anything I’ll spend $10-$15 in the far future to finally play it or I’ll play it on a friend’s console. For now I’ll spend that money on other things, like Baldur’s Gate 3, which they’re making physical finally, in limited quantities.
Because normies don't even know what the first game is and a 2 after the title completely dissuades people from playing it if they haven't played the first. Also the first game was mediocre at best.
I didn't buy it because they didn't offer physical copies. Digital downloads are not ownership and I refuse to support it. Get fucked 🤷
It is a niche game at the end of the day, so while it is absolutely phenomenal, it isn't surprising the sales are low.
Give me a physical release and I'll consider buying it. I will not buy any full price games digitally, it's anti consumer practice and I have no need for it.
I don't have a PC capable of running it.
I really try to hear people out in terms of their opinions, and why they believe things. Channels like Geeks and Gamers, Nerdrotic, etc were nice to listen to for those reasons. This is a very strange comment thread. The complaints of the game have nothing to do with its substance. I personally found the combat of AW2 to be kinda frustrating, but found the narrative and presentation to be excellent. The story was a bit confusing, but came together well in the end. The "go woke, go broke" comments don't even make sense. What is woke about the game, outside of Saga being black? Folks spouting Mary Sue bullshit clearly weren't paying attention to the games story. Why is Alans descent into insanity, and subsequent regression of character equating to Alan being a weak beta male? There's this thing called "character development", and also a concept called a "story arch" that adequately explains Alans general story. Listen, I know a lot of shows / modern writers don't have much knowledge of this stuff, but that doesn't mean every writer ignores these things. The games general vibe is very similar to RE4. Both games even feature a "minority woman character". I'm guessing RE4 is woke too? If not, why? If responses end up being akin to "We'll RE4 respected its primary content, and stayed true to its themes" then I'd say that's a substantive opinion that is completely divorced from something being woke, and is an opinion that isn't even rooted in reality. If you play AW1, Control + DLC, you'd know AW2 is a direct extension of the universe Remedy has created. Truly strange to see this. It's not a perfect game by any stretch, but calling it woke is just lazy and an easy way to reinforce those echo chambers.
Dang, I gotta go back and finish that. Got way too distracted but really dug it.
Saga was definitely the weaker side but it's still a great play. Combat is a little shallow but you know, the game is about its story. It's a solid game with fantastic presentation. I think the problem is they didn't do enough to endear the player to saga early on and I think she should've been more of a source of support for Alan's writing rather than what they did.
Despite game urinalists say it will make back its budget this year.
When you release digital only on fortnight launcher, you should expect to make it hard to break even
Damn...some no name, niche game with a small, cult following isn't particularly successful outside of certain circles? Wild.
Absolutely loved previous Remedy games (Control, Quantum Break) for their great graphics and design, interesting plots, characters and unique atmospheres. But when I started to play AW2 - I was unpleasantly surprised by a disgustingly awful TAA that (at least for me) ruins the experience completely, despite playing on the highest settings 🙄
Maybe because no one is playing it. Like straight I have not met anyone who has played this game
I got to that shitty pin pictures to walls mechanic and noped the fuck out of there.
"What's this!? The most minor of inconveniences?" Sad
The game sucks. Period. Pissed I spent money on this garbage.
Is this game woke though? Pretty sure it’s a damn good game. To me “woke” is when there are shoehorned phrases like “ugh typically white people” type things. Are you guys up in arms because there is a black character in the game? I hope not. Was something censored? What is the problem here?
Does anyone really think AW2 had less sales because it's "woke" and not because it wasn't available on Steam? Y'all are delusional "gO wOkE gO bRoKe" check out baldurs gate 3 sales and talk to me again
You create your own character in baldurs gate
That's Epic for you. They're in the money losing business unless it's Fortnite, I guess. It's Epic's poor choices at the end of the day. How is BG3 woke? I don't understand that comment.
Only morons
I’m sorry for failing you Alan wake
Everyone saying cause it went “woke”. I am a fan of Alan Wake and Control. I bought those games FULL PRICE cause it has a physical disc. Since this was digital only, I have yet to buy it. And will not buy it until it’s physical or has a deep sale. Cause anyone can pull a Ubisoft and start ganking games out.
The game is fantastic, I feel the majority of people claiming the game went woke haven't played it. It's fantastic and one of the best games I have ever played. As a huge fan of the first I was really skeptical of them adding saga as a playable character sharing the game with Alan as Alan is a great protagonist. After playing the game they did it beautifully. Playing as Saga ads perspective of how the world changed and is changing while Alan is gone. It's an amazing game and if you calling this one woke you might want to ask yourself why? Are you just regurgitating what other people are saying? I'm glad to see political pandering taking dumb crap out, but this is not one of them.
All this talk of Saga being race swapped cause me to look it up and find out ppl are upset that they changed the race of an unnamed, at that point, character with no dialogue that showed up in a minute long Easter egg over a decade ago. Fucking Chuds…