Alan Wake 2

This is not the story you want it to be

Sometimes dreams do come true. And sometimes so do the tortured nightmares of a fiction writer wracked with schizophrenic episodes. I can't remembered how long I've heard the cries echoed from the rafters for an Alan Wake 2 to be realised; but I can certainly say that it was a lot further back than the time that I had actually played the original game, Alan Wake. This was one of those titles that I heard of from pure reputation alone, because god-knows that the marketing wasn't doing much to throw the thing my way. A clearly loved cult classic with legions of loyalists simply begging Remedy Entertainment to go back to their most beloved IP, after Max Payne which they no longer own. Such that I could feel the excitement buzzing from behind all those computer screens around the world when they finally got that confirmation in a teaser sizzle during the Game Awards last December.

It was an huge and important announcement, one very clearly worthy of a little bit of covering on this here blog, but I- well you see the thing is I didn't actually like Alan Wake too much. Woah, woah, careful with those pitchforks- you'll have an eye out. What I mean to say is that I didn't think Alan Wake was a bad game as such, it just didn't really leave an impact on me when I played through it, to the extent where I didn't even touch the 'American Nightmare' spin-off sequel-thing despite having technically bought them both in a double pack. (Although fans of the series seem to think that sequel was varying degrees of bad so maybe I got off lightly) My nonchalant feelings could honestly stem from a number of reasons- maybe because I never grew up with shows like Twin Peaks, and was much more into 'Tales from the Crypt' as a kid than 'The Twilight zone'. As I understand it, for a lot of the fan base out there, Alan Wake keyed into the dormant childhood love for that kind of entertainment and built upon it. Love that I never had- so I guess it just didn't end up being my thing.

Which doesn't mean to say I'm not interested in what they're doing this time around. That's the thing with Remedy, they're a cosy studio who can embark on wild and weird flights of fancy in order to make these quality titles with an creative oddball edge to them, without going full artsy love-it-or-hate-it. Alan Wake, Control and even Quantum Break were all very approachable and recognisable types of games to your average gamer out there, whilst exploring wild topics like temporal displacement, SCP-like cryptids and inner-darkness personified. Remedy have made something of a name for themselves with games like that, and holding themselves back from going fully off the deep-end like some might have expected by now. Heck, even Max Payne is considerably more stylistic and narratively complex than a lot of the contemporary shooters of the time, these guys never fail to stand out.

Now Alan Wake actually did have a sequel in development around the time of the first game's release, which was a real passion project for that period of their history, and not something that Remedy wanted to do just because all other cool single games were turning into series' back then. (Although maybe that bears some looking into) Their writing process was laser focused to rope in strings and hooks that could be picked up in sequels or spin-offs, such to the extent that they even ended the story on a cliff-hanger that I totally remembered and didn't have to just look up. (Maybe I need to play that game again- it's not right for me to have literally no recollection of the things whatsoever!) Look online and you can even watch some gameplay snippets of what Alan Wake II would have been like thanks to an internal demo which was built for the team to show off some of the directions they wanted to go in. But as you can likely guess from the fact it's taken 11 years for this to even be officially announced; that project didn't quite take off.

Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, weren't interested in an Alan Wake 2 when it was pitched to them, although they did want to bring Remedy aboard for something new they might create. What resulted was another step in the oh-so-weird 'games crossed over with TV shows' gimmick which was actually close to being a thing back then- Quantum Break. Break had it all, famous faces attached, flashy time bending effects and tons of action- it just didn't bring it in the gameplay department. Oh, and the extended show portions of the game kind of dragged. So fans of Remedy had to accept the bitter pill that Alan Wake was put on ice for this. Although Alan did get a tiny nod thrown into the game, perhaps as Remedy's way of showing they hadn't forgotten about their little tortured artist. Although it would still be several years and whole different game release later before Remedy would get around to actually paying off that tease.

And you know what, this may seem like something of a controversial take from me but I think the brand of Alan Wake is better off for the wait. Allowing memories and fondness to swirl and bubble into nostalgia fits a nostalgia-baking brand like this incredibly well and there's something just right about a literary-themed narrative ending on a major cliffhanger that waits a near decade to be resolved. (Or just continued, I guess. I don't think Remedy are going to kill their most beloved active franchise off just yet) Tell me that's not every book series ever- wouldn't Alan Wake, a game conceptually authored by it's own protagonist, be keeping with it's premise to follow suit? And I mean just look at that old gameplay demo for Alan Wake 2, if the project was greenlit it just would have been more of the same. I'm sure to those cult fans out there such sounds like a dream, but I and people like me wouldn't have been interested. Now the intrigue of what could be, especially after the very impressive Control, has me curious.

But what I really want to know, is what lessons will Alan Wake be taking from it's extended hiatus when it comes to horror? Because the landscape has changed substantially. When Alan Wake was king, Remedy was taking their first steps into Survival Horror and you could tell from the way they borrowed certain concepts from classics in the series whilst framing those ideas in a unique setting. But what lessons might have taken hold now? Five Nights at Freddy's, for example, is a massive series; and that has demonstrated admirably how effective it can be to take away a player's personal agency and have them simply sit and wait for the horror to find them. Resident Evil 7 bought players close and personal with the gruesome and weird, resulting in an impressively immersive and voraciously vivid experience some would call too scary. And GTFO lives off the horror of putting the player at the bottom of a very long, very unsettling and very eldritch food chain. Any one of these influences could drastically change and rewrite the experience of Alan Wake should they be weaved into II; and I think such a transformation would be perfect to justify this long awaited sequel's final appearance.

We've probably a while to go before Alan Wake II materialises, there's no release date yet, just a window, but already there's excitement drumming up from the sheer mystery awaiting. Sam Lake has made in clear in no uncertain circumstances that this will be a different kind of experience to Alan Wake 1, calling this sequel a 'Survival Horror' whereas the original was an 'action game with horror elements'. I don't know if I quite agree there, I think the first game was a survival horror, just one that focused on being creepy rather than terrifying, but I understand the sentiment. This new game is going to try new things, it won't be afraid to mess with the status quo and Remedy aren't going to just become a middle-of-the-road sequel factory like so many other video game companies in today's world already are. This won't be the last preview we get on this game, and despite my rocky recollection and lack of interest in that first title- this game might just have my attention. And so to coin Alan's parlance: To be continued... (Or Hirohiko Araki, I guess)