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Alan Wake 2 prototype

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http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/4/20/8450329/alan-wake-2-prototype-video-interview



INTRODUCING THE ALAN WAKE 2 YOU WILL NEVER PLAY

Alan Wake 2: For a passionate, perhaps not big enough, fanbase, just hearing the name of that title can't help but kickstart a jolt of excitement.

In 2010, the original Alan Wake, published by Microsoft, hit the Xbox 360. It showed that episodic gaming could be compelling when released as a package, that narrative was important in games, and that violence and gore aren't the only way to scare in an interactive experience.

Writers from publications like The Associated Press, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph praised the game's pacing, its look and its storyline. Back at Kotaku, I wrote that the game helped to redefine interactive storytelling.

It sold more than 4.5 million copies, and its story concluded with a confounding cliffhanger that launched many theories and extensive analysis.

It felt like Alan Wake 2 was coming. Remedy even created a functioning internal prototype. But then the game, like its fictional protagonist, simply vanished.

IT'S NOT A LAKE; IT'S AN OCEAN

In Alan Wake, players take on the role of the titular anti-hero, a bestselling thriller novelist who is trying to figure out what happened to his wife during a vacation in Bright Falls, Washington. As Wake digs deeper into the story, it becomes clear that things aren't exactly normal in Bright Falls and that elements of a novel he doesn't remember writing are coming to life.


Concept art of a Taken

The game plays out in episodes that break the story into TV-show-sized chunks. Each episode kicks off with a summary of what happened in the last and ends with a cliffhanger and an appropriate piece of music.

It's a smartly paced game that takes its storytelling seriously, but ends on a note that feels incomplete.

That's because it is. Remedy designed Alan Wake's story from the beginning to be told through a number of games.

That scope of narrative pre-planning came from Remedy's time working on the original Max Payne, a game the team didn't plan past, in terms of sequels.



Concept of Birdman Taken

"I, for one, happily killed almost every character in Max Payne," said Sam Lake, Remedy's creative director and head writer, in a recent Polygon interview. "That proved to be a challenge when making the sequel. That taught us that with Alan Wake and everything we do, the idea of a sequel and sequels has to be there from the beginning.

"For Alan Wake, from the get-go, we assumed there was going to be a sequel and we mapped things further out when it came to character, story, details and focus changes. We knew we would have to iterate and refine, but there was always a rough road map there."

As Alan Wake neared shipping in 2010, the team started focusing on making those rough plans more concrete.


Bear Boss Taken

"Near the end of Alan Wake, we were sitting down and talking about the sequel and where we should be taking it, on a detailed level," Lake said. "More or less straight from getting Alan Wakeshipped, we were working on a sequel and planning on a sequel."

And it's not just Alan Wake 2 that Remedy was planning on.

"Definitely what we have mapped out is a longer thing than the first game and a sequel; there is more to it," Lake said. "In many ways, we see the universe as a bigger thing. Alan Wake is a very central character, but we have other characters around him like [friend and agent Barry Wheeler] and his wife Alice and Sheriff Sarah Breaker and other characters there.

"We feel this is a big universe to develop and explore in many ways."

THE PROTOTYPE

It's one thing to want a sequel to your game. Even planning the story out for a sequel isn't that surprising. But Remedy has a working prototype, one it created about five years ago to show off Alan Wake 2.

It used that prototype to create a pitch video to shop around to potential publishers. Lake said the video is not meant to be the opening of the sequel, but a taste of what was to come.

"It's more like a mood piece," he said. "The high-level thematic elements of what's there.

"Clearly in the prototype we see Alan Wake himself as a more experienced player in the secret war against the forces of darkness."

The prototype also shows off enemies not seen in the original game, new settings and a new mechanic that the team was excited about.

"You can see a glimpse of rewriting reality in the video," Lake said. "Those were new things that we started prototyping and working on."

Narratively, Lake said, the idea was to continue Wake's journey and his struggle with the rising force of evil in the sequel.



AW2_2010_reality_tear_01.0.jpg

Concept art for Alan Wake 2: A reality tear


"It's clear that escaping from the dark place can't be too easy and there should be a price to pay," he said. "So going into the sequel, there needs to be further journey and story arc for him to escape."

As it turns out, the prototype Lake showed Polygon (which you can see above) isn't the team's only prototype. It's just the most polished piece of gameplay the studio has for Alan Wake 2, the one it used to pitch the game.

"WE HAD DIFFERENT GAMEPLAY TESTS AND ELEMENTS AND SOME ASSETS."
"There were a lot of rougher gameplay prototypes," he said. "We had different gameplay tests and elements and some assets."

Eventually, many of those bits and pieces ended up inAlan Wake's American Nightmare, a sort of stand-alone story told within the universe of Alan Wake. That downloadable game, released in 2012 on Xbox 360 and later on Windows PC, was, it seems, Remedy's final realization that Alan Wake 2 wasn't happening anytime soon.

"The setting, even some of the enemies, ended up in American Nightmare, which was a fun, small project with very limited resources," Lake said. "You can glimpse certain aspects of American Nightmare in the prototype."

It's unusual for a studio to allow an outsider, let alone the public, to see a prototype for a game that was never published.

MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS THAT ALAN WAKE 2 WAS COMPLETELY DEAD.
When Remedy first told me it was going to let me look at the prototype, my first thought was that Alan Wake 2 was completely dead.

But that's not why Lake and the rest of the developers at Remedy were so comfortable releasing it.

"The thing that made this idea of releasing this prototype demo OK is that it is very much on a high level," Lake said. "There are no spoilers in it. That being said, I do hope we get an opportunity to work on Alan Wake 2. I want to do more Wake at some point."

Last year, Lake publicly told all of those Alan Wake fans that the sequel wasn't in the works because the studio didn't feel like the time was right. The scope of what Remedy wants to create didn't match with what it was able to do while working on Quantum Break.

"It wouldn't have been the sequel that Alan Wake deserves to get," he said. "But the possibilities are still out there."

And the timing certainly has improved.

ALAN WAKE 2 TO QUANTUM BREAK

While Remedy had a publishing deal with Microsoft for the original game, the studio owns the rights to the Alan Wake franchise. So once it was happy with the early work prototyping Alan Wake 2, Remedy began to take the video around to a number of publishers.

Eventually, it arrived once more at Microsoft.

"They have been really supportive about Alan Wake and [now head of Xbox] Phil Spencer has been awesomely supportive when it comes to Remedy and Alan Wake along the way," Lake said. "We showed it to Microsoft and I guess at the time Microsoft was looking for something slightly different for their portfolio.

"Quite quickly our discussion about Alan Wake 2 turned into something else and that something else turned into Quantum Break, which was great and very exciting."

Quantum Break was first shown to the outside world during the Xbox One reveal event on Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus in May 2013.

Like Alan Wake, Quantum Break is a third-person action game, though it seems to rely more heavily on shooting. The game takes place after a time-travel experiment goes awry on the campus of a fictional northeastern university. One of the major twists to the game's design is that it will include a significant live-action element. After playing through an episode of the game, players watch an episode of the show. The show, and the game, are both impacted by player choice.



AW2_2010_reality_tear_03.0.jpg

Concept art for Alan Wake 2: Wake navigates a reality tear

While Quantum Break was initially set for a 2014 release, it was later delayed to 2015. This year, the game was pushed back to 2016 to give Remedy the time to polish the game, and move it away from Microsoft's other exclusives due to hit by the end of this year.

"The team and the work is very much focused on Quantum Break," Lake said. "We are living in Quantum Break land and enjoying ourselves, but at the same time we are in a place where we are starting to look into the future and starting to have discussions about what is next."

There are multiple possibilities, Lake said. The team could, for instance, work on another game in the Quantum Break universe — a backdrop that, as with Alan Wake, was not created for a single game.

"Among other things," he added, "we are discussing the possibility of an Alan Wake sequel with multiple partners, but nothing has been decided."



AW2_2010_arizona_nightdesert.0.jpg

Concept art for Alan Wake 2: The Arizona desert would later appear in American Nightmare


Whatever happens, Remedy needs a next big thing. The studio has grown quite a bit working on Quantum Break, a game Lake describes as a very ambitious project. Where Remedy had a headcount of 85 as Alan Wake was wrapping up, the studio is now up to 135.

Microsoft's Spencer, a longtime and public supporter of both Remedy and Alan Wake, told Polygon he remains a fan of the franchise.

"It was one of the most engrossing and cinematic games of the Xbox 360 generation and I think it would be interesting to see what Remedy would do if they decided to revisit the IP again," he said. "In our industry, for better or worse, we sometimes have a tendency to let the success of a game immediately dictate the next project, but Remedy is a studio that follows their own passion.

"I love what they are doing with Quantum Break — they're focused on making a great game. After that, I'm sure they will spend time deciding what they are passionate about next."

ALAN WAKE 2

A lot has changed since 2010, and not just in games.

Since the release of Alan Wake, the notion of standardized television programming has been torn apart and reassembled. Big, original shows likeHouse of Cards, Daredevil and Transparent are released an entire season at a time. Cable television stalwarts like HBO now offer stand-alone service to cord-cutters.

Where episodic gaming was once unusual, it has now found a champion in Telltale Games' wildly popular Walking Dead series.

The shift in the way entertainment is now consumed is likely to impact any future Alan Wake games.

Could a potential Alan Wake 2 be released one episode at a time, instead of on disc, as a sort of gaming service, I asked Lake.

"Thinking about it, episodic and in some ways the concept of game as a service, is doing really, really well out there," Lake said. "Episodic is just very much part of how we pace our experiences, as it was with Alan Wake, as it is withQuantum Break now. In some ways that would make sense; not saying that some other approach wouldn't work just as well. But I'm sure that would be part of the discussion, at least."

And, Lake points out, there continues to be "awesome, revolutionary" storytelling going on in television.



AW2_2010_watery_flood.0.jpg

Concept art for Alan Wake 2: Wake wades through a flooded city


"It continues to be an awesome source of inspiration for our storytelling," he said. "Things like True Detective and other great TV series out there. And talking about Alan Wake and what were our sources of inspiration for the original Alan Wake, there are interesting things happening about that as well.

"Both Twin Peaks and X-Files are coming back, which is something I'm really excited about and looking forward to."

With Quantum Break winding down, and Remedy's interest in an Alan Wakesequel scaling up, it feels like the timing could be right. Add to that renewed interest in the sort of storytelling that Alan Wake comes from, and a desire to see original episodic programming in places other than cable, and you might have a perfect storm for a next Alan Wake game.

Does Microsoft have the appetite now for Alan Wake 2, I asked Lake, or is it still looking for something different?

"I wouldn't start guessing," he said. "But definitely we'll have those discussions."

And what are the odds of us seeing an Alan Wake sequel published with or without Microsoft?

"It's hard to guess," he said. "I would love to do that ... it feels that time has only refined the ideas of what the sequel would be, which is great. It's almost, in some ways and on some level, that all of this extra time to think it about it has made it tastier and more exciting.

"Only time will tell."
 

MicoSelva

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I read a rumour that they are pitching a new take on the sequel to various publichers now. I hope it gets made eventually (and not as an XBOX exclusive...), as I have really enjoyed the original game.
 

sser

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In 2010, the original Alan Wake, published by Microsoft, hit the Xbox 360. It showed that episodic gaming could be compelling when released as a package, that narrative was important in games, and that violence and gore aren't the only way to scare in an interactive experience.

Writers from publications like The Associated Press, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph praised the game's pacing, its look and its storyline. Back at Kotaku, I wrote that the game helped to redefine interactive storytelling.

Huh? None of those things are unique to Alan Wake.

Redefine storytelling? What?

I don't know what people see in that game. It's goddam pretty, that's for sure, but the gameplay was very boring and the story is a typical Stephen King Night Shift-era romp.


Also, based off how Microsoft's been doing the gaming business as of late, I think an "Alan Wake: HD" version will hit before we ever see a sequel.
 

Muty

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It showed that episodic gaming could be compelling when released as a package.
Translation: Episodic gaming sucks donkey balls and only works when released as whole game. News at 11.
 

bylam

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Alan Wake was terribly written. I didn't finish it and somebody told me that the hackneyed story makes sense in the end, but it was seriously bad in the parts I played. You don't write a story about a bestselling novelist without having decently written dialogue yourself...

I've also heard people say it had a "Twin Peaks" vibe, but it seems like people think the Twin Peaks vibe comes from pine trees and a small mysterious town.

Also birdman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDj7ojo0j4U
And it was done a bazillion times before TSW did it (Didn't Bioshock Infinite have a hype trailer with that as well?)
 

A horse of course

Guest
The ending (of the gnomeplay segment) seems like a nod to a scene from one of the early drafts of AWake (the UFO).
 

thesoup

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So it's gonna be in development until something like 2021 if the original is of any indication.
 

thesoup

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Am I the only one who got bored by Twin Dicks?
If I had first watched it as an adult I probably wouldn't like it.
People should issue trigger warnings for this kind of shit. Example:
"I really love twin peaks. Trigger warning: I watched it for the first time before I was legally allowed to drink."
Would save me the trouble of watching a lot of shitty pilot episodes.
 

Ovplain

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Am I the only one who got bored by Twin Dicks?

EVERYBODY got bored of it. There's a stretch of episodes in the second season that are just BRUTAL and nigh unwatchable, it's a common fact.

Still, I did enjoy the first season immensely and some of the second season. Also an X-Files and Stephen King fan. So i couldn't help but enjoy the fuck out of Alan Wake.:S Would love to visit Bright Falls again.:/
 

Menckenstein

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Am I the only one who got bored by Twin Dicks?
If I had first watched it as an adult I probably wouldn't like it.
People should issue trigger warnings for this kind of shit. Example:
"I really love twin peaks. Trigger warning: I watched it for the first time before I was legally allowed to drink."
Would save me the trouble of watching a lot of shitty pilot episodes.
Trigger warning on everything in the Codex top 100.
 
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Am I the only one who got bored by Twin Dicks?

EVERYBODY got bored of it. There's a stretch of episodes in the second season that are just BRUTAL and nigh unwatchable, it's a common fact.

Still, I did enjoy the first season immensely and some of the second season. Also an X-Files and Stephen King fan. So i couldn't help but enjoy the fuck out of Alan Wake.:S Would love to visit Bright Falls again.:/

David Lynch - after originally agreeing to write and direct the whole thing, dropped out a few episodes into season 2. He had massively underestimated the amount of work involved in doing all the writing and directing and showrunning for a major tv series. He did it without much warning, and it pissed off Kyle Mclachlan enough that it ended their collaborative relationship that had been going since lynch's first few projects (they're buddies again now, and mended their differences in time for Mclachlan to do a few scenes for Firewalk With Me, but it was McLaughlin's refusal to commit to a full film with Lynch while he was still angry at him that forced Lynch 2 make FWM a prequel instead of continuing the story - Mclachlan has said that as far as the new series is concerned, he's in if Lynch is in. Then again, he is almost single handedly rescuing Agents of Shield this season, as Hyde - it's basically dull old AoS interspersed with the-awesome-kyle-mchlachlan-is-awesome-show at this point - so they might throw him a few buckets of money to hang around).

Unfortunately, good writers aren't always good at managing OTHER writers (see also Stephen Moffitt with Dr Who), and the quality dropped massively when Lynch left. Yes that's speculative, but note the point when Lynch took over the writing again later in season. Actually, I'll put it in spoilers so you can guess (it's exactly the answer you would expect it to be)
when the murder spree chess game ramps up between Agent Cooper and Windom Earle, pulling the show from its daytime soap rut into a 3-way battle between the forces of light (Cooper, the major, the white lodge etc) v the forces of supernatural evil (the black lodge etc) v human evil (Windom Earle)

If you like Twin Peaks, watch Fortitude (is going to get a second season, but 1st season is very much written as a stand alone series, with all the major characters having full story arcs or, for most of them, being... uh... unavailable for any season 2. Sort of a cross between a British Twin Peaks and a modern day Lovecraft story.

The naturalistic setting will cause many to miss the Lovecraft aspects (don't expect Cthulu to rock up) but it's exactly how you'd expect a Lovecraft story to be written today. I'll put this in spoilers so I don't ruin it, but once you see the story pattern it's all there :
set in an isolated town that's full of modernist human arrogance but at the mercy of forces infinitely more powerful than they - instead of old gods, it's nature itself. Middle of the Arctic, where the wildlife, ie polar bears, prey on the humans, trapped by winter and at the start the town is trying to 'defeat' nature by building a tourist resort to put the place 'on the map' as a major holiday destination. An endeavour so arrogant that they don't realise it's entirely futile due to their insignificance in the faces of forces beyond their control - as the Russian says in the last episode 'you fucking idiots! The hotel was never going to be built - the glacier MOVES!!'And an ancient, horrific evil has been awakened - parasitic wasps, of the same kind that led Darwin to say that God cannot exist for no benevolent being would have created them, but which infest mammals instead of arachnids - whose larva control their hosts, turning them murderous in order to spread, before eating them from the inside out. Ie nature, ancient (the larva having been preserved in a mammoth fossil), faceless, massive, and underlying modern anxieties, stepping in for Lovecraft's use of religion and the supernatural.

And the main character? Exactly how you'd do a Lovecraft protagonist today. A detective who's a renaissance man: educated in just about everything, a great analytical thinker, sent to Fortitude to crack the mystery behind this closed town, that's full of secrets and decidedly hostile to outside eyes being cast upon them. He thinks he's smarter than everyone else because he IS smarter than everyone else, but he doesn't know the town, its ways or its people, and his belief that he can solve the mystery through the greatness of his rational mind proves to be his undoing. Like every Lovecraft protagonist, he's the epitome of a 'great man', but still the last to know what's really going on.

And then, the final cleansing with fire. Except it's already established that the wasps have passed into the local polar bear population, not gone but hidden, their re-emergence an inevitability

Less spoilerific, don't pay much attention to the people saying it's like Lost. In fact one of its strengths stands out in contrast to Lost. As major characters die or lose their ability to wield influence over the town, you get the feeling that each loss (even when it's just something like a town official fucking up in a way that compromises their integrity within the investigation) is taking its toll on the town's chance of survival. They're cut off and only have so many leaders to call upon, before they start running out.
I particularly liked the part where it hits home how badly losing the archaeologist and the doctor has fucked them, leading to a PhD student and a lab assistant trying to run spinal fluid tests while repeatedly having to answer 'I don't know' to questions the doc could have answered, until ending up in a trap the archaeologist could have avoided
 
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Menckenstein

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Wayward Pines books by Blake Crouch are a nice love letter to Twin Peaks. About to air as a terrible tv miniseries.
 
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I've also heard people say it had a "Twin Peaks" vibe, but it seems like people think the Twin Peaks vibe comes from pine trees and a small mysterious town.

Originally Alan Wake was designed as a horror sandbox filled with Twin Peaks atmosphere. But Remedy soon realised how shitty is the Xbox 360 and had to butcher that idea to release the final version of the game.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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I didn't care much about Alan Wake until I got it for 10 Jewro on Steam, but was pleasantly surprised by it's masterful storytelling and it's meticulous attention to detail. A game made by artists that care about their craft and take their time, not some fucking game factory that shits out fast food on an annual cadence. I'm also quite excited about Quantum Break. Remedy are pros and bros.
 
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Sul

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I really enjoyed Alan Wake, even if what we got was a mere shell of what it once was before Microsoft grabbed it and made an X360 (timed) exclusive. Superb atmosphere.
Is American Nightmare any good?
 

Menckenstein

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I really enjoyed Alan Wake, even if what we got was a mere shell of what it once was before Microsoft grabbed it and made an X360 (timed) exclusive. Superb atmosphere.
Is American Nightmare any good?
Arguably better, if a little truncated.
 

keppj0nes

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I am more interested in the Alan Wake 1 I will never play. I still remember all the videos and promotional info about the earlier version of Alan Wake before it became an uninteresting consoletard mess.
 

Metro

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...but was pleasantly surprised by it's masterful storytelling and it's meticulous attention to detail. A game made by artists that care about their craft and take their time..
You should write for IGN.
 

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