Speaking to Eurogamer at Summer Games Fest earlier this month, Alan Wake 2's creative director Sam Lake and game director Kyle Rowley gave us a little more detail on the reasoning behind going digital-only, explaining that, actually, it was to allow Remedy more time to polish the game to an acceptable level - something publisher Epic Games had also been on board with.
"Yeah, it is digital only, and kind of coming to this idea, both from Remedy and Epic's perspective, that's our current thinking. It just felt it makes sense for this, and the timing felt right," Lake explained, before Rowley gave a little more detail.
"As creatives obviously, by going digital-only it does allow us more time to polish the game," Rowley said. "Like, a significant amount of weeks actually. Because otherwise, the game that goes on the disc, obviously it has to be playable without a patch."
"We didn't want to release something that we weren't proud of basically, and that we didn't want players to play. So hopefully this way we can give you a better version of the game."