After years of rumors and speculation, Remedy Entertainment finally announced Alan 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 of Alan Wake after the original game ended on a now-infamous twist. In the time since, Remedy has created the Remedy Connected Universe, an MCU-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 that Alan Wake 2 will 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 feature much darker content than ever in a Remedy game. Alan Wake 2 is the perfect choice to usher in a new era of horror games from Remedy Entertainment.
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 original Alan Wake being a quote from Stephen King. Remedy has long taken clear inspirations for its games, such as Max Payne's bullet time sequences and style being inspired by The Matrix.
Alan Wake is a game that is enhanced by understanding its influences, with many players at the time of its release calling it the "Twin Peaks of 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 from Alan Wake 2, which is likely to take some inspiration from the 2017 revival of the 1990s TV show, Twin Peaks: The Return.
Twin Peaks: The Return is a far darker show than the original series, delving further into the surreal elements of David Lynch's other works like Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. As Agent Dale Cooper finds himself trapped in the Black Lodge during the end of the original Twin Peaks and most of The Return, Alan Wake is trapped in the Dark Place at the end of the original game and during Control's AWE expansion. Furthermore, while Cooper is replaced 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 for Alan 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 already hinted at the team's Lynchian influence heading into Alan 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."
The Ultimate Remedy Game
Ever since it revealed that Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control were all set in the same universe, fans have been wondering when Remedy will have its next big title. Control's AWE expansion set the story of Alan Wake 2 into motion and 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 2 is 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 for Alan 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 to Control and likely future Remedy projects.
Horror is a genre that Remedy has circled for a long time, first showing its passion for the genre in Max Payne's The Twilight Zone-inspired in-universe TV shows. These have since become staples of Remedy's projects. Alan Wake was the studio's first dedicated attempt at telling a story with horror themes, and while Quantum Break shifted gears into more of an action focus, Control pulled 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, when Alan Wake first released, the horror genre was on the decline as Resident Evil shifted toward a more action-oriented direction and series like Silent Hill were disappearing. At the time it was only new franchises like Dead Space keeping the genre afloat, albeit still selling far less than more action-heavy titles with horror elements. Today, franchises such as Resident Evil, Five Nights at Freddy's, Little Nightmares, and The Evil Within prove that horror is here to stay. The market is clearly hungry for more survival horror titles and given Remedy's overlap with the genre in the past, it's hard to believe this transition will hurt Alan Wake 2's potential sales-wise.
The full shift to horror only seems like a positive thing now that Alan Wake 2 has 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 of Alan Wake 2 that Remedy is cooking will likely be one of the studio's darkest titles yet.
Alan Wake 2 will release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2023.
