Alan Wake won’t just be gaining a few things in his upcoming remaster (a nicer face, for instance), he’ll be losing a few things too, specifically in the form of all that product placement infamously infesting the original version of developer Remedy’s cult-classic horror game.
Alan Wake’s decidedly unsubtle attempts at paid product placement came in for some considerable criticism when it released back in 2010. The otherwise picturesque town of Bright Falls, which serves as the backdrop to Remedy’s adventure, was, for instance, littered with billboards for US phone service provider Verizon, and Wake’s supernaturally imbued flashlight seemed unusually fussy when it came to matters of evil-fighting, making exclusive use of Energizer batteries – meaning thousands of the brazenly branded buggers littered every nook, shelf, and unlikely hidey-hole throughout the game.
And it didn’t end there; Bright Falls’ spooky streets and forest-lined roads played host to vehicles manufactured by Ford and Lincoln, and Microsoft, which published the original Alan Wake, even managed to squeeze a few of its products in too.
