Ground control to Major Tom, Remedy Entertainment is removing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” from Alan Wake’s credits and replacing it with a brand new original tune. Remedy announced that the song will be removed in an update on Sept. 10, something required due to “changes in licensing.” Bummer!
The new song is called “Strange Moons,” from Alan Wake and Control composer Petri Alanko. Alanko said in a post on X the song is “written from a point of view of an astronaut who does have quite a few problems” — but has made peace with it. He adapted the song from a piece of music originally tied to a cut Alan Wake level that was removed “long before release.” The song doesn’t appear to be available online just yet, but Polygon has reached out to Remedy for more information.
Remedy’s path this time around is a relief to future Alan Wake players — no pulling anything down, like what happened in 2017 to Alan Wake and, notably, this year with Yager Development’s Spec Ops: The Line. 2K Games said it was pulled due to licensing issues.
Of course, it’s still sad to see the Bowie song go — it was a memorable touchstone that bookended the first Alan Wake game. There are very few games in which people actually remember what the end credits are set to. Still, Remedy’s chosen the best possible path forward in opting to replace the song. Alan Wake fans get new music!