At a recent Alan Wake 2 preview event, Wccftech had the chance to interview Remedy’s Game Director Sami Antero Järvi (known by most with the pen name Sam Lake) to discuss the sequel due in exactly one month, its place in the larger Remedy Connected Universe, and the potential move toward open world games.
You can read our final hands-on preview here. Alan Wake 2 will be available on PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X on October 27th. Today, Remedy confirmed that consoles will feature a Performance mode targeting 60 FPS.
One of the biggest things a lot of people have been wondering about is the Remedy Connected Universe. How did you determine which titles or multimedia are not part of the universe, such as Quantum Break?
Well, it’s a really simple division. The Remedy Connected Universe includes the titles that we own. So, Control and Alan Wake. Of our past games, Quantum Break was from the get-go since it was created for Microsoft and they own it, and Max Payne, after the first game, we sold the IP to Take-Two and Rockstar, so we don’t own that either.
Does James McCaffrey possibly have a part to play in the future in the Remedy Connected Universe?
Well, I would hope so. Yes, for sure. I love working with James. He’s great and it’s been an absolute pleasure collaborating to create Alex Casey’s character in Alan Wake 2.
Multimedia storytelling has been a big part of Alan Wake. You had the prequel miniseries, the comic books, and the files, of course. Do you plan on continuing this technique with Alan Wake 2?
Yeah. I mean, maybe a difference here is that we are using multiple mediums for sure. There is plenty of live-action content in a stylized way inside this. We are going further with custom-created songs with songmakers inside the experience.
Maybe the difference now is that there is so much content inside this game, and we’ve been so focused on it that we have not really had the bandwidth to do anything outside it as of yet, whereas with the original game, we were doing different things also around and outside the game.
Now we are very focused on getting this over the finish line and then creating DLC content for it, but we are definitely not ruling out future ideas on transmedia opportunities.
In your eyes, how does that DLC look for Alan Wake 2? Do you envision a continuation of the story or some sort of side content, ala American Nightmare?
We have not really opened it up on the DLC other than saying that there are going to be two paid DLCs. The first one is called Night Springs and the latter one is called the Lake House. Both will launch in 2024. On top of that, yes, there will be free DLC content for the players as well.
But regarding those, to the best of my knowledge, we have not opened up on what the plan is yet.
Fair enough. As far as the story progression goes with our session today, we first played a short amount as Saga and now we’re playing a bit as Alan. Will you be able to play through the entire experience as just Saga or will you be forced to shift between the two characters in order to progress the narrative?
You will get the full experience of both sides, but you are free to choose how you proceed. The beginning of Alan Wake 2 always starts as Saga comes to this small-town community to investigate the murders. But then, after a while on that, we open up the Alan Wake side of the experience to you. From that point on, you are free to switch between them as you proceed further.
Basically, you can keep on playing as Alan Wake in the dark place almost to the end or switch back to Saga and play almost to the end. At that point, depending on where you are on the other side, you will have to go back and play that part of it. And then we’ll go into kind of our finale if you will.
But how it has been built is that depending on which side you experience – because they are connected and they are echoing each other in many ways, there is no right or wrong way to proceed through this.
But you kind of get a different point of view into it depending on which side you play first.
Ok. Is there any interactivity between the two sides? If Alan’s story progresses past a certain point, will that interact or make changes to Saga’s view?
Well, I said they are connected and there are things that echo through them for sure. Beyond that, I like that for players to kind of discover.
I wanted to circle back on American Nightmare just because it’s such an anomaly, it feels so significantly different than Alan Wake’s particular writing style. I was curious if American Nightmare fits into the canon of Alan Wake’s mythos.
It is part of the canon. To me, everything that we have made as part of this universe definitely has a place in it. I like the premise of American Nightmare which, of course, was that it’s essentially an episode of Night Springs, being trapped in the Dark Place. Alan Wake has been writing for 13 years trying to escape and he has tried again and again, different kinds of stories.
American Nightmare is him writing a Night Springs episode, essentially trying to make that come true to escape. Spoiler or no spoiler, it was his attempt to escape. It never kind of manifested beyond the Dark Place. So, it’s an example to me of these stories that he has been creating in order to escape for 13 years.
That’s one snapshot of one story that he created, but it didn’t come true in the significant way of actually punching through, becoming reality, and letting him out, it was kind of a fantasy in a way.
Will we see other fantasies from Mr. Wake’s mind present themselves?
Yeah.
All right, good to hear. Obviously, as you mentioned, songs are a big part of Alan Wake 2. We did hear the first track from Ahti, the janitor, early on. Focusing on the lyrics there, obviously, it does give some hints into the narrative. I was curious if the song that you first hear as you’re playing around as Saga in the third mission, if the lyrics there only pertains to her side of the world, or if you’re getting a little bit of insight into the Dark Place as well.
They are connected and after being there, singing this song and like us not being quite certain about who or what Ahti is overall. That becomes clear in Control. Like, is he just this goofy janitor guy or is there more to him, like, some deeper understanding of things?
He has an interesting role to play in Alan Wake 2. The thing about fiction coming true, if we take a step back, we have been saying that it’s not just writing; it’s works of art in general that are important in this. In the original game, we have the Old Gods of Asgard and their songs, in some way implying that they can affect reality as well.
All of this is very thematically fitting to be kind of thought about and kind of played about.
Would Remedy consider attempting an open world game again? That seemed to be your original intent with the first Alan Wake.
We tried. We couldn’t make it happen at that point. In some ways, I feel that Control was a step in that direction in a successful way. I mean, it was this kind of a semi open world hub design, which we are doing now in Alan Wake 2. The future will show how far we would want to go in that direction with future games.
But certainly, it is way less linear when it comes to worldbuilding than the original Alan Wake was. Alan Wake 2 has many more open areas to explore.
With your plans to expand the Remedy Connected universe, can we expect Alan Wake 2 to somehow lead into Control 2?
Yeah. It’s interesting. We did that in a very clear way with Control, especially the AWE DLC, setting up things. We have publicly announced that we are working on Control 2 and like you saw the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) does play a key role in the Alan Wake 2 story.
We are not saying anything definite at this time, but we are setting things up that will play a role in the future of the Remedy Connected universe.
If I can just ask a very quick yes or no as my last question, will there be vehicle sections in Alan Wake 2?
Well, not in an interactive way, but that is the way players will move in the Pacific Northwest within our hub areas, like the northern lake and the surrounding wilderness, the small town of Bright Falls, and the neighboring town of Watery. You do go to your vehicle and choose which hub you want to travel to. That’s the method of traveling between the hubs. But no, there aren’t any actual driving sequences in Alan Wake 2.
Thank you for your time.
