After years of waiting, Alan Wake is finally back this year in a sequel that goes all-in on survival-horror with creepy visuals and an art direction with a grindhouse movie flair to its design. While the game has been built from the ground up with this cinematic frame rate in mind, a Performance mode will be available for PS5 and Xbox Series X players looking for a smoother experience, according to Remedy's communications director Robert Puha.

"I'm glad to say that Alan Wake 2 will have a Performance mode on PS5 and Xbox Series X," Puha posted on Twitter. "The game has been built from the beginning as a 30fps experience focusing on visuals and ambiance, but somehow we have managed to include a solid Performance mode. Our Northlight engine scales well in this case though, lower resolution yet the game looks amazing. One of the big challenges from a performance standpoint on the Saga side is that the Pacific Northwest has a lot of foliage, trees, (transparent objects), expensive lighting (that looks amazing) amongst many other features that make it really challenging on the framerate."

Typically, Quality and Performance modes on consoles offer distinct visual performances with certain compromises. Quality modes usually allow for a game to be rendered at 4K and 30fps--sometimes with ray tracing enabled--while Performance modes juggle a 60fps output with a resolution that dynamically scales according to what's happening on the screen. There are some exceptions to this rule, like the upcoming Marvel's Spider-Man 2 being a prime example.