How To Fix the Audio Desync Bug in Alan Wake 2

Players have been experiencing this audio desync bug in Alan Wake 2, but there are certain ways to fix it.

It was 2010 when the first Alan Wake game was released, but even if the game wasn’t able to earn the same popularity as series like Spider-Man or God of War, it still earned a lot of great reviews, and a lot of fans were excited for this year when the sequel was finally released.

The series is a survival-horror game that draws inspiration from games like Silent Hill. Alan Wake is a writer suffering from writer’s block, and he goes off to the countryside with his wife to try and get out of his head and back onto the page.

It’s too bad for Alan because he then finds himself in an alternate reality, and he finds pages that he supposedly has written, which all come with dark predictions that come true. What’s more, his wife goes missing, and it will be up to him to find her before everything is too late.

When it comes to Alan Wake 2, Alan will once again have to figure out how to use his writing talents to get himself out of a bind. Now, they’ve also introduced a new co-protagonist in the form of Saga Anderson, an FBI agent with supernatural abilities.

Audio Desync Bug in Alan Wake 2

Like every new game, there are bound to be some bugs and issues that didn’t get smoothed out before the game was pressed and shipped out to release. One particular issue with Adam Wake 2 is that the audio sometimes misses or stops syncing with the images.

Though players should expect Remedy Entertainment to get on the bug as soon as possible, some people have pointed out that there are fixes that can be done to stop the audio from bugging out when you play the game.

Take note: different fixes depend on what kind of platform you’re playing Alan Wake 2 on.

Restart Your Device

The first step to any technical issue is probably turning the device on and off again. It’s possible that there could be some underlying system issues affecting how the game is run, so doing a simple restart could bring everything back to square one and just have everything running smoothly.

Change Audio Settings for Xbox Users

Though restarting the device should also work for Xbox users, there is an extra step for Xbox players if they’re still undergoing audio issues with Alan Wake 2.

Go to the audio settings of your Xbox and set the audio output to “Stereo Uncompressed.” After changing the setting, restart Alan Wake 2 again; the issue should already be fixed.

Oddly enough, some have reported that the same fix doesn’t work for PS5 and PC.

Verify Files

This fix is only for PC users. Regarding the launchers you have Alan Wake 2 on, there is usually an option to “Verify Files” and see if any are missing from your game folder.

For a launcher like Epic Games, you can go to Library>Alan Wake 2> “…”> Verify. For Steam, you can go to the Steam Library, right-click Alan Wake 2, select Properties>Local Files tab> and Verify Integrity of the Game Cache.

Should your game be missing anything, the launcher can detect it and install the missing files for you, fixing your issue.

Do a Clean-Install of the Game

If worse comes to worse, you can always try completely uninstalling the game and reinstalling it with the launcher.

Though it’s easy to click ‘uninstall,’ you’ll also have to delete all the leftover files from Alan Wake 2, located in the same game folder and the launcher folders. Of course, it’s okay to salvage your save data before deleting all the folders and reinstalling them.