

Remedy has said that Alan Wake and Control form part of their Remedy connected universe that will serve as a basis for future games.Ībove, the player, as Alan, "fight with light" against a Taken. Later, Remedy released Control in 2020 which contained references to Alan Wake. However, the scrapped sequel became the foundation and inspiration of Remedy's next title, Quantum Break. A sequel was in development but was cancelled. Alan Wake's American Nightmare, a full stand-alone title, was released in February 2012 on the Xbox Live Arcade service. Alan Wake was awarded the first spot in Time magazine's list of the top 10 video games of 2010. The game received positive reviews from critics, and is often praised for its visuals, sound, narrative, pacing, and atmosphere. After an intense two-month period, the team reworked the game to be a more traditional linear game broken into an episodic approach but which better supported the planned narrative structure and capable of reusing much of the open world assets already built. The game was originally developed as an open-world survival game as an anti-thesis to Remedy's prior linear Max Payne games, but struggled over three years in merging the gameplay with the action-thriller story they wanted to tell. Alan Wake Remastered, featuring the full game and both DLC episodes and published by Epic Games Publishing, was released on Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in October 2021.Ĭhiefly written by Sam Lake, Alan Wake took over five years to create-an unusually long development time in the game industry.

Additionally, a six-episode live-action web series called Bright Falls acts as a prequel to the game, and a number of related books also expand upon the Alan Wake story. Together, they make the first season of a possibly longer story.

The game itself consists of six episodes, and the storyline is continued by two special episodes, titled "The Signal" and "The Writer", that were made available as downloadable content (DLC) within the same year of the game's release. In its pacing and structure, Alan Wake is similar to a thriller television series, with episodes that contain plot twists and cliffhangers. The story follows best-selling thriller novelist Alan Wake as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance during a vacation in the small fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington, all while experiencing events from the plot in his latest novel, which he cannot remember writing, coming to life. Alan Wake is an action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios, released for the Xbox 360 in May 2010, and Microsoft Windows in February 2012.
