Update: Talks are underway between Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment to bring the original Alan Wake to Xbox One. Nothing has been finalized yet so it’s just in the early stages at this point.
Remedy Entertainment recently revealed why Alan Wake 2 was shelved despite the studio reaching the prototype stage of development. Sam Lake, the studio’s creative director, said, “For Alan Wake, from the get-go, we assumed there was going to be a sequel and we mapped things further out when it came to character, story, details and focus changes. We knew we would have to iterate and refine, but there was always a rough road map there. Near the end of Alan Wake we were sitting down and talking about the sequel and where we should be taking it, on a detailed level. More or less straight from getting Alan Wake shipped, we were working on a sequel and planning on a sequel.”
Remedy’s vision for the sequel didn’t gel with their plans following the first game’s release. The studio decided to start a new project while keeping the possibility for a sequel at the appropriate time alive. Much of the work they put into making Alan Wake 2 ended up going into the American Nightmare expansion. According to Lake, “the setting, even some of the enemies, ended up in American Nightmare, which was a fun, small project with very limited resources. You can glimpse certain aspects of American Nightmare in the prototype.”
The studio will one day return to Alan Wake but right now they’re focused on Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break. The game has been pushed back to 2016. Lake ended the interview by saying, “we are discussing the possibility of an Alan Wake sequel with multiple partners, but nothing has been decided.”
Source: Polygon
Asher Madan is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 182 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on Windows and PC, and Xbox news: joined Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017 covering Xbox news, hardware, and reviews.