Why Sam Lake Is Glad It Takes 10 Years and ‘Four Failed Attempts’ to Make Alan Wake 2 Succeed

Alan Wake 2 looks good. really good. It even rivals the excellent Resident Evil remake series for its survival horror cachet. In the 13 years since its release, the original Alan Wake has penetrated the hearts of horror fans and narrative game lovers alike, and is easily ranked among the best Xbox 360 games by consumers and critics alike. So why did a sequel—at least a real sequel—take over a decade to arrive?

“Alan Wake always felt like a special project,” Remedy Entertainment creative director and lead writer Sam Lake told me. “We’ve always had plans to do more. We had a concept after the first, but the timing was obviously not right. We ended up taking some of these ideas on a smaller scale and using them for American Nightmare.”

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a downloadable sequel and spinoff to its predecessor, is much smaller in scope than the original game, and features an experimental and bizarre story. So, learn with this developer. But it’s not really a sequel, and fans have been clamoring for a fuller title in the years since it arrived on the Xbox 360. And, at The Game Awards 2021, fans got their wish.

But behind the scenes, Sam Lake has tried three times to get Alan Wake 2 off the ground. “Back then, in the promotion of Alan Wake, after American Nightmare, there was the idea of ​​using real people in the middle of the game to tell the story,” Lake explained. “At the time, Microsoft was impressed. But Microsoft wasn’t that keen on more Alan Wake. So the idea became Quantum Break.”

Alan Wake 2 has another connection to Quantum Break, and that’s Kyle Rowley, game director on Remedy’s latest game and lead designer on the controversial Xbox One game Division, the game experimented heavily with live-action episodes. But even after working on this new IP and satisfying Microsoft’s desire for multi-format media, Lake was still eager to make Alan Wake 2. According to Raleigh himself, “[Lake’s] I’ve been wanting to do this for 13 years! ”

But what comes next is something more action-oriented and more open-minded. Alan Wake fans despaired of Control’s release in 2018, and Remedy (who was keen to try time- and cost-saving development techniques with this “new weird” curio) launched the game in 2019.

“After Quantum Break, we made a version of Alan Wake 2 that was more action-oriented and less linear, but we ourselves ended up thinking that approach wasn’t quite Alan Wake either,” Lake said. Said. “So we took some of those design ideas and created a new IP around them, Control. Because the Alan Wake connection was there, we wanted to set both games in the game universe.”

Control was such a success, you’d never tell that this AAA hit was developed over three years on a relatively modest budget of 30 million dollars. For the eagle-eyed, the majestic Brutalist decor of The Oldest House barely mentions Alan Wake, and it’s clear that Remedy has something in the pipeline — laying the groundwork for something big. Something peculiarly odd.

“All the pieces fit together bit by bit: Control had elements of Alan Wake, it had an interconnected universe, we got back the publishing rights to the original game, and we were able to make remakes for a wider audience. Plate making. We knew we were making a sequel. All those things really set the stage. That’s why the second DLC [for Control] It’s such a crossover; we knew we were doing a sequel, and we wanted to line it up. ”

Remedy has learned a lot in the 13 years between the Alan Wake games. It learned how to keep production costs down, how to shorten development time (seven years for Alan Wake, five years for Quantum Break, three years for Control), and Rick had time to really reflect on his The desired Alan Wake 2 becomes.

“I have to say I’m glad none of these [initial four] Our concept for Alan Wake 2 eventually turned into a full game. ’ he laughs as he walks us through this labyrinthine timeline. — to tell the story and create the game. I’m so glad we waited over 10 years to get started! ”

From what I’ve seen so far, Alan Wake 2 will be everything I want from the series; half Scandinavian crime thriller, half Midsummer Nightmare, and 100 % Remedy’s The New Weird, which will deliver on a promise the studio has been trying to deliver for 13 years.

Alan Wake 2 launches on October 17, digitally only on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.