Alan Wake 2 creator is “really happy” previous versions of the sequel failed

Remedy Entertainment’s creative director has said that the franchise’s previous attempts at sequels were better off not getting made.

Alan Wake 2 has been a long time coming. The original game landed all the way back in 2010, and the American Nightmare DLC landed in 2012, but since then it’s been quiet. Things sprung to life with the second Control DLC, AWE, which officially connected the two franchises. Still, the wait for a game with a 2 on the end has been a long time coming. This October, it’s finally over.

In that time between though, Remedy has certainly experimented in getting other versions of the sequel going. The studio has puzzled over how to make it work for over a decade, and until now it had been fruitless.

At Gamescom, we got a preview of the game and as part of it, we were part of a Q&A with the creative director at Remedy and the legendary face of Max Payne, Sam Lake. During it, we asked, why is now the right time for Alan Wake to come back?

“We’ve been trying through the years”

Lake said that the return wasn’t for the want of trying, but it’s for the better that older versions didn’t make it. He said, “This was the first time we succeeded in getting it made. We’ve been trying through the years.”

“The time was not right back then. Looking back at those pitches and concepts that we created, I am really, really happy none of them got made, because that meant that this got made now [instead]. We could not have made this game earlier.”

“Our concepts for Alan Wake 2 are quite different, starting with the game genre. [There were] a lot of learnings with Control that we wanted to put in this. A lot of growing ambition as well on storytelling.”

Lake’s comments leave many interesting questions. First and foremost – what did these original sequels initially look like?

Interestingly, Polygon has footage of a demo of one of the pitches for the sequel. It feels very different, but is an awesome bit of history preserved that launches many what-if questions.

Still, it’s great Remedy has gotten to the point where it’s happy to release Alan Wake 2 with the story it wants to tell. It’s shaping up to be a very spooky time.