PlanetXbox360: Tell us a little about the bad guys in Alan Wake, what looks like a mix between a zombie and an alien has our blood flowing; correct me if I'm wrong but to get to the darknesses weak spot you have to shine a flashlight (or something equivalent), then allowing damage to be unleashed.
Remedy: Yeah, that’s pretty much it! Our enemies, the Taken, are essentially invulnerable when they’re protected by the darkness. In order to fight them, the player needs to first burn the darkness off with a light. Once that's been accomplished, they can be killed. They aren’t zombies or aliens, but they aren’t human, either – not anymore. Some of them retain some faint echoes of who they used to be, but they’ve been taken over by the darkness. They’re pretty nasty customers.
PlanetXbox360: What kind of PR/Marketing program is in place for Alan Wake; I fear that because of the type of game AW is it may fly under the radar to a large number of Xbox 360 owners; do you have any plans to counteract this worry and if so what are they?
Remedy: We have a pretty solid plan. This is a title that crosses over into a broader interest group, that is why we have a very cool set of live action webisodes leading up to the launch of Alan Wake – a prequel if you like, to get people into the thriller mood. It’s often hard to talk about a game that has new ideas and gameplay mechanics. You know, with Max Payne we tried to explain how cool bullet time is, and people replied “really, you slow down gameplay, won’t that make it boring?”... some things are just better played than explained I guess☺ We are trying hard to get the messages across though, we released a 3.5 minute trailer just over a week ago called “building a Thriller”, if you don’t know what Alan Wake is yet, or are sitting on the fence whether it’s cool or not, go check that one out to get a snippet of the concepts.
PlanetXbox360: Alan Wake has become one of the running jokes in the video game industry, is the team confident that once the game is released all those worries and jokes will be put to rest and gamers will start to appreciate Alan Wake for what it truly is?
Remedy: Well, it’s kind of nice to know that people care enough to crack jokes instead of, I don’t know, just shrugging... But that kind of thing really goes with the territory, I think. I mean, when you're making something for consumption by the public, you open yourself for commentary and criticism, and you can either learn to roll with the punches a little or just give up and go do something nobody has any real reaction to or interest in. It keeps your ego from bruising but isn’t very interesting. Obviously, we’re aware of the fact that it took us a good while to get where we are now, but I think people are going to see where the time went when they play the game. By modern standards, we have a pretty small team, and that means we can’t get things done as quickly as some larger studios – it’s simply a question of how many man-hours of work you can complete in a week. But there are advantages: it also means that we have a fairly intimate and immediate work environment, and it’s easier for us to experiment or change gears, because we don’t have to worry about a hundred guys sitting around twiddling their thumbs, which can cost a studio enormous amounts of money. So, there are lots of pros and cons, but I think the game’s quality will speak for itself.
PlanetXbox360: What kind of environments will we get to take Alan Wake through, is it a massive open world type thing or only these areas are opened at this time in the story? Also what is the average completion time for single-player only, no speed runs just a first-time sitting down and playing Alan Wake, how long to beat it?
Remedy: We used to be an open-world game, way back in the day – but that didn’t last very long. I think it’s fair to say that we jumped on the bandwagon then, although I may not be the best judge of that; this was before I got involved in the project, so I’m not speaking from personal experience here. Anyway, in a nutshell: there are a lot of storytelling challenges in that kind of a game, and if you’re trying to build something really intense and atmospheric, it's necessary to anticipate the player’s movements, set things up precisely and build the tension. I’m generalizing a little here, but it soon became apparent that we could have an open-world game with a story that constantly failed at what it tried to do, or a more controlled and refined experience with a storytelling that really worked. Remedy puts a big emphasis on story and atmosphere; it’s a kind of a mission statement for us to make excellent action games with a focus on storytelling and atmosphere, so in the end, the decision was clear. So we scrapped those old plans and moved on, but it was a worthwhile experience. The game wouldn’t be what it is now without it; it gave us a lot better sense of what we did want to do, so we got a lot out of it. That kind of freedom to experiment and try new things is extremely valuable, I think.
PlanetXbox360: Multi-part question: What television shows, movies, books, and other video games did you get inspired by in the creation of Alan Wake; also what's next for the talented team at Remedy Entertainment (besides vacation of course) - can we expect more from you in the future or are you already hard at work on Alan Wake 2? Lastly can I get a review copy sent over here as soon as possible, I am literally dying to get my hands on this game, it's my Game of the Year and I want to make sure the non-gamers know that, it's all about timing - Edelman seems not to be taking me seriously enough.
Remedy: It’s a really hard question to answer. I think by now everyone knows that we like to list Twin Peaks, Stephen King and Lost among our key influences, and that’s certainly true, but beyond that, you’d probably get a little different answer from everyone in the team. Personally, I find that inspiration can strike at weird times. Sometimes I think I get my best ideas in the shower, or when I finally stop trying to come up with one. As for what’s up next, right now, we're hard at work on the upcoming DLC, which is shaping up really nicely. At this point, the team knows our tools inside and out, and they really know the limitations and advantages of our technology, so work is progressing amazingly quickly. A big part of it is that everyone's excited to be creating brand new content – it’s been quite a while since the last time we got the chance to really just start throwing out fresh ideas and see where they take us, but since Alan Wake is now done, it’s not like there’s anything else to do! It’s a lot of fun.
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