Basically IGN just told us what we already know and showed us footage we've already seen...

Unless it's 'hands-on', that's basically what a preview is nowadays.

Remedy Entertainment, the developer of Max Payne, announced today that it has licensed Umbra Software’s rendering optimization middleware for their new title Alan Wake.

“Umbra gave a significant boost in rendering performance on the Xbox360, and at the same time made our content creation faster. With Umbra’s culling technology, Remedy’s team can add more details to Alan Wake’s world and concentrate on the cool visuals while minimizing tedious work such as adding portals.” said Remedy Entertainment’s Development Director Markus Mäki.

Umbra is a GPU accelerated rendering optimization middleware available for PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Umbra has two major application areas: it increases frame rate dramatically, and makes the content pipeline faster and more effective.

“It’s been a pleasure working with Remedy on Alan Wake,” said Marko Nurro Umbra Software’s CEO. “Remedy is one of the most innovative and technically competent studios in the world. Their games just rock, simple as that.”

Now, let’s just hope the long-awaited Alan Wake rocks too.

What mo cap thingy? :P

http://forum.alanwake.com/showpost.php?p=43810&postcount=26

OMG!!!!!
More info!

Really? What was new there? I skimmed through it and saw nothing worth calling new info.

Well, I read through it thoroughly, and there wasn't anything new there.

Lots of rumblings about this not coming to the PC.

Boy is that a load of shit... but when Microsoft Game Studios is your publisher.... it's hard to doubt.

I wasnt claiming that there was, I was just pointing out that assuming there is nothing new when you have skimmed through it shouldnt be the way to go :)

Finnish gaming mag Pelaaja recently had a chance to visit Remedy for the first time in 4 years.

In the indepth interview we find out some new information that was still up in the air. Here’s a quick summary of it all:

- Alan Wake is not late. Before E3 2009, Remedy have never given a release date and all previous dates found floating on the web were made up by other sources. In fact Remedy have never missed a release date for any of their previous games and does not intend to with Alan Wake. Alan Wake will be released Spring 2010 for the Xbox 360.

- The original vision hasn’t changed but the way the game plays out has been experimented with along the development process. One of the major changes is that the game is no longer a sandbox type of game where the player can roam freely (ala Grand Theft Auto). Since Remedy wanted to focus heavily on having a compelling storyline, sandbox style gameplay does not mix well with what Remedy wanted to achieve. Remedy stressed that this does not mean the game will be linear and that you have to follow a set path throughout the game. “The player must not feel they’re being pulled from strings. The player must feel like they’re making the decisions themselves”.

- Throughout the game the player will be finding the missing pages from Alan Wakes new manuscript, however not all the pages will be found through the normal game’s missions. Similar to how Bioshock handled it’s audio logs, Alan Wake will allow you to roam freely around looking for manuscript pages.

- Remedy has said from the beginning that light will be an important element of the gameplay. Alan Wake’s most important weapons are his flashlight and other light sources found in the game world. The dark force can possess both the residents and animals in Bright Falls and make even lifeless objects attack Alan. They are vulnerable only in the light. (Just an addition to this. Light seems to strip the shield that the darkness adds and once that shield is stripped you can use conventional weapons, like a gun, to get rid of the enemy -ADM)

- Even though Microsoft is publishing Alan Wake, Remedy still own all rights to the game and Alan Wake is planned to be only the beginning of the story. Remedy arn’t covering the fact that they want to expand out into other forms of media as well. Although Remedy have yet to make any decisions on this.

- Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Remedy haven’t spoken about the PC version of the game yet and the release of a PC version is up in the air. When asked about it Remedy replied saying that both Microsoft and them are only speaking about the Xbox 360 version at the moment.

That’s about it. The rest of the article (which you can read here) talks about the demo that was shown at E3 and how it’s riddled with little details that we all love from a Remedy game.

I wasnt claiming that there was, I was just pointing out that assuming there is nothing new when you have skimmed through it shouldnt be the way to go :)

Given that it was announced as a PC game and debuted in a PC gaming magazine.. etc..

But things changed when Microsoft got involved.. and I hadn't even considered that until I saw the post Viginti_Tres posted above. Now, I'm worried.