Alan Wake 2 is a survival horror action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment. Take a look at this behind-the-scenes video discussing with some developers on how they approached horror, the design of it all with Alan Wake 2, and most importantly what horror means to the team at Remedy Entertainment. 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 Alan Wake 2 is a horror game.
00:05 In horror stories we only have victims and monsters.
00:10 We've come up with a new take on the dark presence,
00:13 which is more dangerous and terrifying than ever.
00:16 Show me that hand.
00:23 Horror for me is something that connects my basic primal fears with reality.
00:31 I love things like atmospheric horror, psychological horror, haunted houses.
00:37 I like it because the genre of horror has the guts to look at the things that you are too scared to look at yourself.
00:46 I think a good horror can stick with you for days, sometimes even years.
00:51 And I think if a good horror manages to give you that feeling,
00:54 they've really captured something elusive and almost intangible and traumatized the audience in a really, really good way.
01:00 I don't want to be in the story, just write me out of the story.
01:03 I really like writing it because I don't have to be surprised by it in a way.
01:08 I'm setting up surprise for other people. I can scare them. I don't have to scare myself. I'm in control.
01:13 Alan Wake 1 was very much known for its narrative.
01:18 It was telling a horror story, but then there was a bit of a dissonance between the story trying to have this slightly more slow burn feel to it
01:26 and the kind of fast-paced action gameplay.
01:28 So we just felt that there was much more of a cohesive fit between the genre of survival horror and the kind of story we wanted to tell for the sequel.
01:36 It's not so much about the body horror. It's the everyday weird.
01:40 Things that look just perfectly fine and then a twist comes and you're like, "Okay, what's going on here?"
01:46 Using Dark Place as an example, every single shadow, a moving piece, I'm looking at it, "Okay, what was there?"
01:51 The flashlight only illuminates a certain part of the scene, so it very easily focuses your attention in a certain composition.
02:02 Having the lighting and the shadows dance around the environment quickly incites your brain to play tricks on you.
02:08 Essentially, what makes the environment scary is the atmosphere.
02:12 So when you add the lighting and the music, that's when the fun begins.
02:17 Horror tends to be quite a personal perspective towards the issue itself.
02:23 At times, I've noticed that I felt unease, even anxious.
02:28 It's really interesting to bring yourself towards that edge musically.
02:34 We've done a lot of sound design experimentation.
02:38 For example, with the Dark Presence and Dark Presence Roar, what is that?
02:42 How do we make that so evil?
02:45 We've listened to an enormous amount of different people screaming and animals trying to find the correct scream to fit the Dark Presence.
02:54 I think we managed to make it feel like it's a place with a personality, with a pretty unique feel.
03:01 We're trying to avoid a lot of the clichés. We're trying not to fall into those traps.
03:05 So the sense of dread and anticipation is really there.
03:09 Get away! Get away!
03:12 The live-action elements are part of the horror for sure.
03:18 We are using blended video on top of the game footage for these very strange, nightmarish visions.
03:26 Alan Wake as a franchise is very much supernatural, very dreamlike.
03:31 It allows us to lean on that and then utilise live-action in a way that doesn't feel disconnected from that overall experience.
03:38 Using live-action film footage in our games comes from several different directions.
03:44 Our games are set in a version of present day.
03:48 And there I feel that building the world using the mediums that are present in our lives is important.
03:56 And makes it more believable and is just a very logical choice.
04:01 We are almost like shifting through layers of reality.
04:04 So we are falling into these live-action bits that you see on the screen and experiencing that and then falling out of them again.
04:13 Doing more live-action is very, very exciting for me.
04:17 I love doing motion capture and all that, but being with you in the same room, it's fantastic.
04:24 Each shot and each scene is like a different story.
04:29 It's been great. I've never done anything like this. It's been cool.
04:33 Cheers!
04:35 You always have an idea of what the game will be when you start out.
04:38 And then more creative people who are better at your job than you are come on and do cool stuff.
04:43 This idea I had is kind of not exactly as it was when we started out, but it's become this thing which is even better than what I thought it was going to be.
04:53 I feel lucky that I have been able to stuff all kinds of crazy experimental things into this experience.
05:02 Atmosphere and horror and interactive storytelling and mixing of different mediums together.
05:08 All of that combined into what Alan Wake 2 is.
05:13 Fans of the original game and people who may have not experienced Alan Wake, be afraid. Be very afraid.
05:19 [Music]
05:25 (whooshing)
05:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]