Yesterday Remedy Games announced that they’re working on Quantum Break, a unique action game that might be one of the launch titles for the Xbox One. While Remedy’s new IP looks interesting, a lot of fans began to wonder if Remedy had given up on their current-gen action-horror franchise, Alan Wake. In response, Remedy’s creative director, Sam Lake, posted a video on YouTube to directly address Alan Wake’s future.
“As you might have already seen or heard from the Xbox reveal event, we are working on something new. Something big. Which of course means that the next big game from Remedy won’t be Alan Wake 2,” Lake said. While Lake and the rest of his team at Remedy remain enthusiastic about the Alan Wake franchise, financial realities are keeping the company from producing the oft-rumored sequel. “We worked hard to make the sequel happen, but these games are huge undertakings… many things need to fall in place: partners, and funding,” Lake said. “We worked hard… but the sequel just wasn’t happening.” Lake says Remedy probably could have made a less ambitious Alan Wake sequel with a more limited budget, but he believes that such a project wouldn’t be able to live up to fans’ expectations for the series.
“When Alan Wake came out, it was not a huge hit on day one. It’s been doing really well since then. It’s become a cult classic,” Lake says, but he also added “”We knew from the beginning that when Wake ends up in the dark place, getting out from there is going to be a long, hellish journey and a hard struggle… And I guess that where we are now is fiction becoming reality,” referring to the difficulty his team has experienced in securing the budget needed to produce a proper sequel for the series.
It’s not all bad news, though: Remedy has announced that they’re planning a special collector’s edition re-release that packages the original Alan Wake and all of its DLC epilogue chapters with special, never-before-seen bonus material.
I loved Alan Wake when it originally came out for the 360, so this news is kind of disheartening; as far as I’m concerned, Alan Wake takes the action/horror formula that Resident Evil 4 established and manages to pull it off better than any of RE4’s actual sequels. If you missed out on this modern classic when it was originally released, the 360 version of the game is on sale on XBL this week for a paltry $5, while the PC version is currently available as part of the lastest Humble Bundle weekly sale, which lets you name your own price for the game (proceeds go to charity, so don’t be stingy.) Trust me, Alan Wake is one of the best games to come out this generation, and at that price, there’s no reason you shouldn’t play it.
