In our latest reminder that licensed music is a headache that most videogames could do without, Remedy has announced that the David Bowie classic Space Oddity will be removed from Alan Wake next week.
Space Oddity plays over the Alan Wake credits roll, and it seems reasonably on-point: The tale of a man utterly alone, helpless, slowly floating toward his doom, but overcome with awe and at an odd sort of peace with the whole thing—and, in his final moments, thinking of his deep love for his wife. And hey, even if you don't buy my ideas of thematic similarities, it's just a great song.
Next week, though, it'll be gone—from some versions of Alan Wake, anyway. "Alan Wake (2010) will receive an update on September 10th at 11am UTC," Remedy tweeted. "The update will be to all PC versions (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG). This update removes the song Space Oddity from the game due to changes in licensing, and replaces it with a new original song by Petri Alanko, Strange Moons. Alan Wake Remastered (2021) will not be affected by the update."
This is far from a new thing in the world of videogames, and as outcomes go it's about as good as it gets. Sometimes music just gets removed from games but in other cases, as with Spec Ops: The Line earlier this year, expiring licenses cause games to be removed from sale completely. Alan Wake itself was pulled from storefronts in 2017 because of expiring music music licenses, although it was brought back in 2018 after Microsoft negotiated a new deal with the rightsholders.
This time around, though, Remedy is out in front of the situation. Bowie's track will be quietly swapped out with an original work by Alanko, and that should make fans happy: He's composed music for every Remedy game since the original Alan Wake, so he should have a pretty good grasp on the vibe we're all looking for.
Remedy didn't say why Space Oddity is being pulled from the original Alan Wake but will remain in Alan Wake Remastered, but our assumption is that the remastered release is newer and thus the licensing deal will expire later, even though they're essentially the same game. Seems silly to me, but such is the way of the world sometimes—especially when it comes to business deals.
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