For those of you who are unaware of the significance of this reveal, i've decided to create a quick recap of the history of the series.
Part I: It's not a lake, it's an ocean
Originally revealed all the way back in
2005 (really), the game was originally pitched as an
open-world adventure game influenced by such works as Twin Peaks.
Eurogamer: From what we know about the game it will be quite non-linear. Does it have a sandbox structure that people will be familiar with, or are you going for a different approach?
Sam Lake: We're going for a combination of player freedom and story progression. Since we're focused on integrating a good story into the game, it will require a new approach to the game's structure as well. It will be challenging, but it is a challenge we gladly welcome.
At the time, they were still actively looking for a publisher. But it only took about a year for
Microsoft to step-in. With plans to release the title as an Xbox 360/Windows Vista exclusive. (The latter of which was even pushed by
Intel themselves at
a PC developer briefing they did.)
In theory, this
would have been a massive grab for them. Remedy was of course hot off the heels of finishing their work on the highly-acclaimed Max Payne series.
But the concept of combining an open world with their standard storytelling proved to be a
massive roadblock, which ate into their development time for over
three years, and required a retool into something more linear. As recounted by Sam Lake in this Youtube video.
Notably, the final build is still using the
exact original map they created. With areas not normally visited by the player in each chapter being used as background detail (Made visible thanks to the engine still being built around open-world stuff in terms of things like draw distance.)
This revised version eventually hit store shelves in 2010, with the PC version completely
vanishing in the meantime. It reviewed exceptionally well, but was overshadowed by the fact it happened to share it's release date with the
much highly anticipated
Red Dead Redemption. The game would also be supplanted by a pair of DLC "episodes", the
first of which was bundled with new physical copies of the game.
Of course, Remedy didn't want to end the series right then and there through one game. With the very next year seeing a leak suggesting that the next game would be a
downloadable title. Eventually revealed under it's final name "Alan Wake's American Nightmare" at the Spike VGA awards by the end of the year.
(Notably, the screenshot up there was naturally sourced from the infamous Partnernet development server. and caused quite a headache for game preservationists at the time.)
It was a rather
unusual take on the series. Downplaying it's more subtle horror in favor of a deliberately cheesy "grindhouse" setting. When the main villain's theme song is solely about describing how much of a
"psycho" he is, you can definitely tell things went in a different direction.
Regardless, it was clear Remedy
did not want this to be the end for the series. With the credits cryptically claiming that
"Alan Wake's journey through the night will continue."
Part II: This House of Dreams
Shortly before the release of American Nightmare, the initially planned PC version of the first game finally resurfaced thanks to Remedy
constantly asking Microsoft to save it, alongside some development help from fellow Finnish studio
Nitro Games.
"I know you're never going to see Alan Wake or Alan Wake's American Nightmare on PlayStation," Hakkinen said. "Those are Xbox exclusives."
and American Nightmare was quickly brought over itself in May.
But the
real future of the series would surface thanks to a mysterious blog that looked to have been run by Sam Lake himself.
Written by a woman solely referred to as "Samantha". It depicted a tale of a old house the author bought. Filled with
strange poems
bizarre photos
and
vivid nightmares recounted by the author.
I heard the doorbell ring and went to open the door. There was a man there. He said he was a federal agent. He showed me his badge and all, just like the FBI agents do in the movies. Here comes the scary part: there was something wrong with his face; it was leaking inky smoke so that I couldn’t see what he looked like. When I woke up I realized that this image totally came from the ink-covered faces in the photos, of course (see the previous post). The man asked me about the shoebox. He said that it contains top-secret information and that I need to give it to him. I got scared that he’ll put me in jail and went to get the shoebox, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I searched the whole house but it was nowhere. Then I went to the bathroom to look for it, and saw myself in the mirror: my face was covered with inky smoke as well! And that’s when I woke up. When I think back about the dream, it didn’t say “FBI” on his badge; it said “AWE”.
With the Eighth Generation gradually creeping into the limelight, it seemed like the series would be building up for a
proper sequel on there, and by
May 21st, 2013. Microsoft was finally ready to show off their next system.....
I think
everyone knows what happened next at this point, but what seemed like could have been a proper bright spot was them
mentioning Remedy. Could this be Alan Wake 2?
Well,
not quite.
Remedy's next project would instead be a brand new IP called "Quantum Break", and was planned to blend a Video Game with a live-action TV series. A natural extension of them consistently blending Live-Action cutscenes into their games, but not really what people were expecting.
So what happened here? It turns out Remedy actually
did pitch a proper sequel to Alan Wake to Microsoft. But it was rejected.
The remnants of this pitch were used to create the much smaller scale American Nightmare, and this eventually culminated with Microsoft instead suggesting they create a new IP.
Quantum Break would eventually make it to stores by
2016, quite a bit later than intended. But it did at least show Remedy was still thinking about the series, most notably in the form of a
live-action clip featuring the character. Labeled as "Return". Remedy even acquired trademarks for the
name "Alan Wake's Return" but they were insistent that it was solely intended for this easter egg.
However, mentions of "AWE", the mysterious agency briefly described in the This House of Dreams blog. Would make multiple appearances as well.
Aside from this text about conspiracies of a "Bureau of Altered World Events", the word frequently shows up on
in-game graffiti, and a
whiteboard suggests another meaning.
Alan Wake Experience.
Part III: Take Control
With the gap between the release of American Nightmare and the present day steadily growing, it seemed more and more unlikely that the series would come back, especially considering
the original game got delisted in 2017 due to licensing issues relating to Music, and
Remedy's next project would
not involve Microsoft at all, instead being published by 505 games. (and became a timed Epic Games Store exclusive, more on that in a second.)
Of course, things aren't always
ɥoʍ ʇɥǝʎ sǝǝɯ
...
sorry, "how they seem."
The premise, of course. Was about a mysterious Bureau devoted to investigating
Altered
World
Events. Sound familiar?
But the real madness began on
July 2019, where Remedy publicly revealed they had regained
all publishing rights to Alan Wake. With the year prior involving them magically getting the original game
back on digital stores.
Once the game released the very next month, the truth was revealed.
CONTROL didn't just have "easter eggs" referencing the series, it was
explicitly confirmed to take place in the same universe. Something which would be further explored in the AWE (I.E.
Alan
Wake
Experience) DLC.
Sam Lake himself described these connections as being "10 years" in the making, something which can definitely be inferred from this recap. Things have certainly been changed over time, such as the rebranding of "
Altered
World
Event" agents into the more standard "
Federal
Bureau of
Control" agents. But the basic idea of merging their IPs like this had been there from the beginning.
For over 10 years, we’ve had a crazy dream. The idea that the tales told in some of our games would be connected to each other, a connected world of stories and events with shared characters and lore. Each game is a stand-alone experience, but each game is also a doorway into a larger universe with exciting opportunities for crossover events.
Which leads us to
today, thanks to the support of Epic Games (A partnership that
wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for 505 taking the EGS deal.) Remedy can finally go back to where the "connected universe" began. Bringing back a franchise people have wanted to
return for quite some time.
....Oh, and that quote about the original Alan Wake never coming to Playstation? That's been taken care of too!
