Alan Wake 2 | Official 'Fighting the Darkness' Behind-The-Scenes
Alan Wake 2 is a single-player survival horror action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment. Take a look at this behind-the-scenes look at the development of Alan Wake 2 going over the approach to designing gameplay and how it has evolved from the first Alan Wake game. The video also goes into detail on how the game has a two-pronged storyline with Saga in the Pacific Northwest, and Alan in the Dark Place. Alan Wake 2 is launching on October 27 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
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00:00 PEGI 18
00:02 So now we're waiting to obviously gameplay mechanics,
00:05 kind of creating that survival horror experience is very important.
00:08 There's going to be a lot to handle,
00:11 but the player will have all the tools in their disposal to fight the darkness.
00:15 Saga Stories is a relatively classic horror movie.
00:25 It's like someone from the real world entering this quirky town,
00:30 coming here to do a job.
00:32 She has this uncanny intuition that allows her to solve difficult cases.
00:36 She kind of perceives that threat through the lens of this case board.
00:40 The case board is a mental projection where she kind of gets to stash data that she's gathered,
00:46 and that's where she makes sense of it.
00:47 She's profiling suspects who appear in a vision-like way.
00:51 She calls it her "mind place."
00:54 When she's confronted to her first take in,
00:56 suddenly the supernatural is really present,
00:59 and she's excited about it.
01:01 She's curious. It's something new for her.
01:03 When Kieran meets Saga for the first time,
01:05 it was interesting to have this feeling of being protective.
01:09 Like, "Trust me, you don't want to cross this line,
01:12 because when you see all the things that we've seen at FBC,
01:15 there's no coming back from this."
01:17 But when the supernatural threatens a family,
01:20 the stakes are much higher, and she has to fight for her own life
01:24 and the life of her loved one.
01:26 Logan?
01:28 Logan!
01:30 So Saga has her mind place,
01:32 and then because we've got the two experiences,
01:35 this idea of duality,
01:37 we wanted to have the same concept mirrored on Alan Wake's side.
01:41 So he has what we call the writer's room.
01:44 They'll be in a version of Wake's cabin from the first game,
01:48 and then inside there we have different modules
01:50 that the player can interact with.
01:52 One of those modules is what we call the plot board.
01:56 The player can see what they've done in the past.
01:59 It almost acts like a quest log in a traditional game,
02:02 and the player will be discovering inspiration for Alan,
02:05 so he'll be kind of coming across what we call echo scenes.
02:08 Something lingered here.
02:10 I have forgotten memory and echo.
02:13 These give Alan ideas that the player can then utilize on the board.
02:17 It's the idea of rewriting reality
02:20 to be able to change the world around them.
02:22 I changed the story, and with that the dark place changed.
02:26 This allows them to progress through areas they would not be able to before.
02:30 They'll uncover new narrative information,
02:32 potentially even uncover more dangerous threats in that space.
02:36 Some fed king looking for the culprit, but it was a trap.
02:40 Light is definitely a big part of Alan Wake 2.
02:42 We have this new mechanic that allows Alan to place and remove lights
02:46 in predefined scenes.
02:48 Since the dark place works in mysterious ways,
02:51 doing this actually has a physical effect on the world.
02:54 For example, a wall could turn into a doorway or a set of ladders.
02:58 This gives, of course, different opportunities for exploration and gameplay.
03:03 You need to use your light in a conservative way,
03:08 because sometimes it helps you to guide your way,
03:10 and sometimes it can actually hamper your progression.
03:15 Saga needs to use her flashlight to burn away the darkness,
03:19 expose weak spots, and find new possibilities of taking down the enemies.
03:24 And for Wake, it's a matter of figuring out what is real and what is not.
03:28 The danger will be lurking behind every single corner.
03:31 Definitely, light is a weapon, but it's also a way to survive.
03:37 From time to time, you might get overwhelmed,
03:40 so you need to constantly push the threat back and seek refuge in the light
03:45 and manage resources while doing all that.
03:49 We have put a lot of emphasis on the physicality of the enemies,
03:52 the way they animate and how they hit the player.
03:55 One thing that is important in comparison to other games that we have made
03:59 is that the player needs to very actively look at the enemy's tails,
04:02 look at their combos, time their dodges, time their attacks carefully
04:06 to defeat the foe while preserving ammo.
04:10 We have a weapon that allows a more silenced approach,
04:13 and then we have a more close and personal, getting the job done, style of weaponry.
04:18 Alan Wake 2 is built on the foundation of our previous games.
04:25 It's not just a step forward.
04:28 To me, personally, it feels like a leap forward.
04:32 The elements in interactive storytelling that I have wanted to experiment on
04:38 and brought to our games, they are all there present,
04:42 all pushed way forward in all kinds of unexpected ways.
04:47 It's all a very logical continuation on this journey.
04:52 [MUSIC]
04:57 (upbeat music)
04:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]