After years of rumors and speculation, Remedy Entertainment finally announcedAlan Wake 2, the long-awaited sequel to its cult action-adventure game, at The Game Awards 2021. The Finnish developer has been vocal about its intent to return to Bright Falls and the world ofAlan Wakeafter the original game ended on a now-infamous twist. In the time since, Remedy has created the Remedy Connected Universe, anMCU-style shared universe in which almost all of the studio’s games are now set.
The most interesting tidbit shared by studio founder Sam Lake is thatAlan Wake 2will be the studio’s first survival horror game. While Remedy Entertainment’s works have never shied away from horror influence, this will be the first project to pin itself as a horror title, and will featuremuch darker content than ever in a Remedy game.Alan Wake 2is the perfect choice to usher in a new era of horror games from Remedy Entertainment.
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Alan Wake’s Horror Influences
One of Remedy’s strengths as a developer has always been its willingness to wear influences on its sleeves, right down to some of the first spoken dialogue in the originalAlan Wakebeing a quote from Stephen King. Remedy has long taken clear inspirations for its games, such asMax Payne’s bullet time sequences and stylebeing inspired byThe Matrix.
Alan Wakeis a game that is enhanced by understanding its influences, with many players at the time of its release calling it the “Twin Peaksof video games” - a show writer Sam Lake has cited as an influence many times. Keeping this influence in mind, it seems clear what type of tonal shift fans can expect fromAlan Wake 2, which is likely to take some inspiration from the2017 revival of the 1990s TV show,Twin Peaks: The Return.
Twin Peaks: The Returnis a far darker show than the original series, delving further into the surreal elements of David Lynch’s other works likeEraserhead,Mulholland Drive, andInland Empire. As Agent Dale Cooper finds himself trapped in the Black Lodge during the end of the originalTwin Peaksand most ofThe Return, Alan Wake is trapped in the Dark Place at the end of the original game and duringControl’sAWEexpansion. Furthermore, while Cooper isreplaced in the real world by a doppelganger known to fans as ‘Mr. C,‘Alan Wake is replaced at the end of the first game with ‘Mr. Scratch,’ whom Remedy has claimed for years is intended to be a major player in the game’s sequel.
These narrative parallels paint a disturbing picture forAlan Wake 2, as Alan will likely face the worse of what the Dark Place and its twisted version of Bright Falls can create. Lake has alreadyhinted at the team’s Lynchian influenceheading intoAlan Wake 2’s production, quoting the eponymous director in a PlayStation Blog post detailing the game’s reveal with the phrase, “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.”
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The Ultimate Remedy Game
Ever since it revealed thatAlan Wake,Quantum Break, andControlwere all set in the same universe, fans have been wondering when Remedy will have its next big title.Control’sAWEexpansion set the story ofAlan Wake 2into motionand also featured the universe’s first crossover event, but in many ways it still felt like Remedy finding its footing with its portrayal of a unified series of games.Alan Wake 2is likely to be the culmination of the studio’s titles, which is why it makes sense for Remedy to finally take a step into the horror genre.
From a narrative standpoint, horror is the perfect genre forAlan Wake 2as it further plunges Alan into the struggle between light and dark. Being trapped in the Dark Place, a literal manifestation of evil, Alan will have to struggle with his own cynical personality to keep himself afloat and eventually write his escape. This narrative will likely address many of the issues players have with the character, who is intentionally written to be a somewhat unlikeable hero, while also further connecting toControland likely future Remedy projects.
Horror is a genre that Remedy has circled for a long time, first showing its passion for the genre inMax Payne’sThe Twilight Zone-inspired in-universe TV shows. These have since become staples of Remedy’s projects.Alan Wakewas the studio’s first dedicated attempt at telling a story with horror themes, and whileQuantum Breakshifted gears into more of an action focus,Controlpulled things back to form with an emphasis on surrealism and intensity. Remedy has been unable to hide its adoration of the genre, if any studio is ready to take a full dive into tackling it, it’s Remedy Entertainment.
Couple this with the fact that horror games are more successful than ever. In 2010, whenAlan Wakefirst released, the horror genre was on the decline asResident Evilshifted toward a more action-oriented direction and series likeSilent Hillwere disappearing. At the time it was only new franchises likeDead Spacekeeping the genre afloat, albeit still selling far less than more action-heavy titles with horror elements. Today, franchises such asResident Evil,Five Nights at Freddy’s,Little Nightmares, andThe Evil Withinprove that horror is here to stay. The market is clearly hungry for more survival horror titles andgiven Remedy’s overlap with the genre in the past, it’s hard to believe this transition will hurtAlan Wake 2’s potential sales-wise.
The full shift to horror only seems likea positive thing now thatAlan Wake 2has finally been announced. Early development on the title dates as far back as 2011, with Lake constantly reiterating that the studio will develop the title “when the time is right.” It appears that time is now, and the version ofAlan Wake 2that Remedy is cooking will likely be one of the studio’s darkest titles yet.
Alan Wake 2will release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2023.
