The remaster of Remedy Entertainment's take on survival horror, Alan Wake, is fast approaching its release date. With it being something of a modern classic on the last generation of consoles, fans have been hoping for either a remake, or even an Alan Wake 2 which is actually rumored to be in development. With that, the developer has mentioned that the up-and-coming remaster, although portraying an overhaul of the visuals for this generation of gaming, will be missing one aspect that has become an industry standard over the years.
On the official Alan Wake FAQ page, it's been revealed that the remaster will, unfortunately, not support ray tracing. For those who are perhaps uncertain about it, ray tracing has become a common algorithmic feature that many new games, especially triple-AAA games, implement that enables a more realistic way of showing lighting and shadows. While this won't be in the Remedy remaster, the FAQ page does say that this was down to time, adding that it couldn't include ray tracing or HDR, as it would take resources away from "other critical areas" of the game's development.
On the plus side, the post does say that Alan Wake Remastered will support Nvidia's DLSS which is a way of upscaling resolutions to higher ones. Similar to ray tracing, DLSS has become a standard in modern gaming, and uses an algorithm to redraw pixels to up the lower resolution so that it is comparable to a native high resolution display. Fans will likely be pleased that at least this visual feature has made it into the remaster. However, even without ray tracing, the developer is still confident that the game "looks great."
Some screenshots of Alan Wake Remastered have already been shown. Comparing to the original game does indeed show that this iteration has been given a new-gen lift, with 4K visuals. It still maintains the overall look of the original from 2010, but it's clearly been polished with tweaks to character models to make it sit comfortably alongside a lot of modern games.
Alongside the loss of ray tracing, the developer also confirmed that the remake of Alan Wake has removed product placements that were in the Xbox classic. Company's like Verizon and Ford won't feature in this iteration of the survival horror game, and instead will be replaced by generic fictional brands. However, this is unlikely to deter too many people, particularly as this is a remaster that fans have been after for some time.
Alan Wake Remastered will be available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on October 5, 2021.
Source: Alan Wake FAQ