To help introduce newer Remedy fans to the classic Bright Falls, Washington setting of Alan Wake, developers have brought in a secondary protagonist for Alan Wake 2 in the form of FBI agent Saga Anderson. The fact that a game named Alan Wake has two protagonists might seem a tad confusing to some, but there were plenty of reasons to expand the scope of Alan Wake 2 beyond just the titular protagonist.
There are plenty of ways to approach a game with multiple protagonists from the dual protagonists of Dishonored 2, which makes the distinction between player characters fairly minor, to Resident Evil 4’s new Separate Ways DLC which tells an entirely different side story about Ada Wong. Of all the possible avenues, Remedy’s decision to balance Saga and Alan came down to a 50/50 experience, Game ZXC learned in an interview with Alan Wake 2 game director Kyle Rowley and principal narrative designer Molly Maloney.
Alan Wake 2's Saga Anderson was an important addition to the narrative to help tell Alan’s story to players who either joined Remedy’s connected universe with 2019’s hit Control or who may not recall all the details of the 13-year-old original Alan Wake title. Mechanically speaking, she is a POV character representing new players, but players can rest assured she is more than a mechanical addition to the game. Alan does remain the title character, so his role in the game can’t be downplayed either. This ultimately led the developers to want a 50/50 balance between Saga and Alan, with Rowley saying, "That's why it was very important that we definitely have it be 50/50 between the two. Then, Alan is present on the other side of the game too. It's not like he's only present in The Dark Place."
“Basically, the way the game is structured is that you're on board, you play as Saga, and we introduce her side of the story,” he said. “Then, we switch to playing Alan, and we introduce his side of the story. When we're at that point, we like to switch.”
That created an interesting set of problems and challenges for the team at Remedy. Rowley explained that earlier in development, the player was given the option to switch at will, but this created a host of issues. Players would lose track of what they were doing with Saga after playing as Alan for extended periods, for instance, or only play Alan’s story after completing Saga’s, leading to pacing issues. But forcing swaps between Saga and Alan wasn’t the solution Remedy sought. What they decided on were particular narrative beats where a swap of protagonists felt natural. Maloney likened these moments to off-ramps on a freeway.
“We quickly realized there were linchpin moments where you need to understand something. Like, if you're going to play as Alan, we need you to leave knowing certain stuff, so this other stuff makes sense … It's kind of like freeway exits. Once you pass the exit, you're going to play a little longer before the next.”
That isn’t to say that the game intends to force players off the freeway, Rowley explained. The off-ramps are more about ensuring players only swap at moments that won’t damage the game’s pacing or playability. And if a player stays long enough in Saga’s story to forget what Alan was doing, they won’t be dropped into the middle of a mission. Thanks to the narrative off-ramps, players will return with access to the horror game’s carefully designed resources to help them get caught up, Rowley explained.
“That was also one of the many reasons we wanted to invest so many resources into things like the case board and the plot board because they act as a means for the player to catch up on stuff. If they've been playing through Saga's sequence for quite a long time, they then go back to Alan and you can check your board. You can see what you did before, where you're at in the game. It was a nice way mechanically to fulfill those power fantasies but also allow the players to catch up on the narrative they've done before.”
Protagonist switching also provides a useful way to address an evergreen issue of games as a medium–getting stuck. Progression through the game doesn’t need to happen in a particular order, without being as unguided as an open-world game. This is another way Remedy sought to find a balance between two concepts, reflecting the role of duality as a core thematic element of Alan Wake 2.
“Switching between the stories provides a really valuable, refreshing moment,” Maloney explained. “If you're really stressed out playing as Alan or if you're really stressed out playing a Saga, switch.”
Alan Wake 2 releases October 27, 2023, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
