With Alan Wake 2, Remedy Entertainment aims to offer more subliminal and atmospheric horror, rather than just jump scares and gore.
It is already clear that Remedy Entertainment wants to break new ground with Alan Wake 2. On the one hand there are two playable characters that you can switch between, on the other hand you want to shift the feeling of horror a little more.
Moving towards survival horror, away from the game’s action-packed predecessor, is an essential step in bringing the spirit of horror to Alan Wake 2. In an interview with Eurogamer, creative director Sam Lake and director Kyle Rowley explained just how much the modern horror from movies has influenced the style of Alan Wake 2 and where the inspirations come from.
Sam Lake said, “It definitely feels like horror is more popular and there’s new great horror hitting different mediums – it used to be a niche thing, now it’s being embraced by a wider audience.”
Going into psychological horror is very liberating on that front, knowing that we don’t have to hold back, that we can be honest with the story and go as far into the horror as the story feels we need to. “
As a template and inspiration for the current horror scene, the focus was specifically on the style of psychological horror in order to use fewer jump scares or gore moments. The goal is to scare the player in a much deeper way than just a scare or brutal performance.
“Stylistically, if you look at modern and classic art-house horror films, like newer things like Hereditary or Midsommar or other things like that — this idea of stylizing them and basing them more on atmosphere and scare than, you know, gore or jump scares We’ve always taken inspiration from the work of Twin Peaks and David Lynch with the Alan Wake original – it’s still there of course, but we’re just expanding our inspirations for this game.”
Roley added, “These horror movies in particular are interesting from a horror perspective because they’re not – they’re more like ‘horror stories’ themselves. It’s more about the drama and the characters and the things they’re going through and their relationships and how they change throughout the story.”
Lage continued, “I think because we’re having a narrative experience, we focus on the second-by-second horror, the atmosphere, and the way we build suspense. But it’s also the overarching narrative that’s important from the horror perspective and the journey these characters go through. I think modern horror movies – do that very well.”
Alan Wake 2 will not capture the full experience of Midsummer, which is packed with social reflections as well as a final social critique. One would like to use the narrative stylistic devices much more, which approach the representation of the horror more subtly than in a jump scare moment.
Sam Lake commented, “I’m not sure it’s about making a point.”
Alan Wake 2 will be available in digital form for PC on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Pre-orders for Alan Wake 2 are now open. Release is scheduled for October 17, 2023.
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