Alan Wakewill receive an update to the original game, removing a David Bowie song due to licensing costs and replacing it with an unreleased track by Petri Alanko (Remedy’s composer).
Alan Wake Update
Alan Wake amazed us in 2010 for being a different kind of survival horror, with a TV series-like style, which meant including licensed songs, like Space Oddity by David Bowie. However, Remedy Entertainment has decided that it’s not worth continuing to pay for the song’s license, so they are updating Alan Wake to remove the song, which played during the credits.
What’s interesting is that if they’re removing a song, they need to replace it with another one. The chosen replacement is a song they don’t need to pay licensing fees for, Strange Moons by Petri Alanko, Remedy’s usual composer.
Petri Alanko, who was nominated for a BAFTA for Alan Wake’s soundtrack in 2011, was nominated for the same award for Control in 2020, and for The Game Awards in 2023 for Alan Wake 2. He has written a new song for this occasion.
Written from a point of view of an astronaut who does have quite a few problems. But even that is okay, as it is what it is. It wasn’t completely out of scratch (heh), as a section of the song was originally in a level in OG AW, but that level was cut out long before release.https://t.co/eqnlzga4bK— Petri Alanko (@Peppepappa)June 22, 2025
Alanko explained on Twitter that the song “is written from the perspective of an astronaut with a few problems, but even that’s okay, because it is what it is.”
Problem of Licensing in Video Games
What’s most interesting is that this is an unreleased track: although parts of the music were used in a level of Alan Wake, that level was eventually scrapped, so this will be the first time Strange Moons is heard.
Undoubtedly, Remedy fans will want to hear this unreleased Alan Wake track, but it will only be available in the PC versions of the original game, as this change will not affect theAlan Wake Remasteredversion from 2021.
Many video games face this issue: paying for licenses is too costly, and it’s often better to make a clean break. In this case, they can replace one song with another and even release a new track as a surprise for fans, but in other cases, like Forza Horizon, games are directly pulled from sale.
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