Alan Wake 2 harkens back to Max Payne in the most interesting – and typically Remedy – way
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If you’ve started a Remedy game in the last 20 years, you’ll know that there’s one thing that all of their projects have. No, I’m not talking about a Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard song (at least not this time). I’m talking about live action.
Think about it: the most obvious implementation of live-action in Remedy games comes from Quantum Break, a cutting-edge experiment in integrating a live-action TV show into the middle of the game. It received a somewhat mixed reception, but it proved that there is definitely a place for live-action footage in gaming, when approached in the right way.
Control, Remedy’s most recent triple-A release, also included live-action in-game footage building on the lore and giving you video logs to watch that helped orient the player to the weird and wonderful world of the Oldest House. It was less direct than Quantum Break, but it was still a distinct and stylized part of the entire gaming experience.
Before all this though, Remedy had been experimenting with live action in a much more subtle (and technically limited) way since 2001.
“It’s something we do at Remedy,” says Alan Wake 2 game director Kyle Rowley in an interview with VG247. “We used a lot of live action on Quantum Break, we used it on Control, and we even had it on Alan Wake 1, right? In fact, we even had it on Max Payne!”
Sam Lake, Remedy’s creative director and lead writer on Alan Wake 2, laughs, adding: “Well, we had TV shows in the world, but technology didn’t allow us to use video textures, so still frames and a audio track had to do.”
But the intention has always been there; experimenting with the format and using various ways of storytelling has always been something of a modus operandi for Remedy. “It’s always been one of our storytelling techniques,” Rowley continues. “In Control, the live action footage was blended into the game world and used for ‘visions.’ Here at Alan Wake 2, we’ve taken everything we learned from Control. And Quantum Break and Max Payne, really, we didn’t just want to do it again because we’ve done it before. We wanted to use it in a way that had never been done before.”
In Alan Wake 2, Remedy has used live action sequences to further immerse you in the mind of the player character and part of the two lead duo, Anderson Saga. Anderson is a renowned criminologist, infamous among her peers for her unmatched (and slightly curious) ability to uncover even the darkest cases. To help her achieve her goal, she retreats to her ‘Mind Palace’ (think Will Graham on NBC’s Hannibal) and views her stories to help profile her. That’s where the live action for Alan Wake 2 comes in.
“[As the rest of the game is,] go back to that stylized idea; even the live action footage follows the same art direction and is stylized in the same way,” adds Lake. “The ambition has been to stylize and intertwine the gameplay and live elements so that everything feels much more seamless and part of the same experience.”
The seeds that Remedy planted in the days of Quantum Break are paying off now, then. It’s the culmination of 20 years of experimentation and refinement, and it looks like the end result will be something very special.
“In many ways, in Alan Wake 2, we wanted to take certain elements of the ‘Remedy game’ and push them as far as we could imagine,” smiles Lake. And you can say; From what I’ve seen so far, I’m sure Alan Wake 2 will be something special and another modern classic for Remedy.
Alan Wake 2 is out on October 17 and will be available on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.
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