- [upbeat music] - This is how in the process of making, Alan Wake, we re-imagined the game to find its heart and soul. Hello, this is Sam Lake, the creative director at Remedy. I really got into writing for video games partly by accident. 25 years ago, I was at Helsinki University studying the English language and literature and a close childhood friend of mine Petri Jarvilehto was one of the founders of Remedy. They were making the first game for Remedy, Death Rally, and they needed some text for the game. Fortunately for me, I was the only person that Petri knew who was writing, and he came to me and asked if I would like to write the texts needed for the game and I jumped into it and I'm still here at Remedy, 25 years later. Afterwards, Remedy was figuring out what kind of next project we would do and that ended up being Max Payne. Max Payne became this very much defining Remedy game with story and cinematic action gameplay. - [Max Payne] So much for being subtle. - So I was a writer, the only writer back then at Remedy. Created the character, the story, and a lot of the tone for the story, and also the idea of how the story would be told which was with comic book screens in between the gameplay levels and this kind of a hard-boiled metaphor laden narration for the main character. - [Max Payne] The station was drenched in gloom, Alex was a ghost nowhere to be seen. - It took a while for us to figure what the next project would be. There was, I would say, at least a year, probably even a bit more, spent on concepting different ideas. Looking at what would be the next game for us. After more than a year of work we kind of landed with the idea of original concept of Alan Wake. I think that there was pressure after Max Payne and it kind of came from different directions. First of all, it was that old curse of the second album. Sure, there had been two Max Payne games but it was kind of a one thing. It's hard to follow up that kind of a success so there is pressure to make something as good. From my perspective story telling wise, I wanted to create something deeper as a story than what Max Payne had been. More layers to the main character, more layers to the story, and there was a strong idea also, that the story would be structured like a TV show in episodic format. - [Narrator] Previously on Alan Wake. - Alice has been kidnapped. - [Alice] Alan, please help me. - Alice? - [Man] You'll do exactly what I say if you ever want to see your wife again. - [Sam Lake] The idea was that it is this action thriller, drawing inspiration on the story side from the works of Stephen King and David Lynch, and from David Lynch in particular, Twin Peaks. - [Woman] Thank you for testing the lights Ms. Weaver, everything seems to be fine. - It's set in this idyllic American small town environment, and the main character is this very successful writer who has problems and trouble in his life. This internal trouble in his life kind of explodes out of him in a supernatural way to create this nightmare scenario of fiction coming true and forces of darkness awakening in this small town environment. [dramatic music] There was a feeling that after Max Payne games, we should move away from linear experience. And from that perspective, came the idea of free roaming open world. But at the same time, still as an echo of Max Payne, there was a desire for cinematic action. So to go with that was already the idea of light and dark as key elements, and early on that key element took the shape of dynamic day and night cycle in this free roaming open world. So a lot of freedom if you think about it. We were trying to piece together different puzzles. How do we manage this? And how do we piece it together. I just felt that we kind of started moving away from the idea of having this grounding factor of a normal world as part of this setting. This quirky idyllic small town, we were kind of drifting away from that and more and more. The gameplay elements we were looking at started to support the idea that well, if you know that the night time will be full of danger and horrors, then it makes sense for you during daytime to prepare for night time. And it started more and more being this survival thing. The idea that you are driving around in this world, looking for resources, getting gasoline for a portable generator and bringing lights and hooking the lights up and creating this safe place where you can defend yourself during night time. I was trying to come up with a story that would support this. There was a version of the story where the idea was that this volcano, under Cauldron Lake, is actually erupting, because of this supernatural thing that's escaping. And because of that, this whole game world has been evacuated. So we don't have ordinary people around. I remember us trying out ideas like, there were these enemies that were essentially portals into this supernatural darkness. These stationary enemies with shadowy tentacles that were spawning other enemies into our free roaming open world, and the idea there was that you need to take out the portal enemy in order to stop the spawning in the area. We were exploring even other things of supernatural kind of short distance teleporting in there. Even in the final game, we have this supernatural object of power, this old light switch that Alan Wake has and we were trying out things that maybe it can control the dynamic day and night cycle. You can click it and bring about daytime. There were tests on, you know, a tornado that you could control with the clicker and this period of time from 2005, with us trying different things, it just kept on going and going and people were feeling tired and frustrated trying to bring these elements together. 2005 we had our first demo created. We were approaching publishers and it shows open world, it shows Alan Wake the character. It shows day and night cycle, talks about light and darkness. This is kind of what we showed to the publishers, this is actually something that we showed to the public at E3 without having the project signed with any publisher. There was a lot of hype going on and a lot of interest already, but the truth is if you look at that original demo, it ends with Alan Wake, desperately trying to get to a light house to safety before night falls, and then as a glimpse, we see these shadowy silhouettes of the enemies. And that's all you see of essentially core gameplay of an action game. For a long while after, we didn't have anything. We were trying prototyping different things. It was a struggle. Our publisher, Microsoft Studios, were seeing us struggle with this thing. As we went further they were chipping in, clearly trying to help, also suggesting different things, but it was just the case of more cooks coming to the kitchen. It just felt that we were drifting even further away. We are missing milestones and really struggling, and the pressure was becoming bigger and bigger from the publisher's side, because we had agreed on a scope and schedule, we were failing with that. But I think that even more I feel that, internally we are kind of the harshest critics of our own work and we were not happy. [dramatic music] That point we decided to form this kind of a group, the leads in the project. This would be the group that goes through every aspect of the game, makes hard decisions, and locks these features down. And we called this group "Sauna Group". Everybody knows, you know, Finns with their saunas. And the mandate was lets figure out everything, of course with the idea that we had build a lot of it. We had built the world, we had built lot of different elements. We need to be using as much of that, you know, minimizing the lost work. In a way, stay in that room. With all the heat, with all the pressure on us. And that period of time was two months, and the room started to look like mad scientist lab. We were taping papers on the walls, going through all the details of the project. Making very very hard choices, but also I feel finally figuring out and solving problem areas and coming up with in many cases very elegant solutions to these designs. The final form of enemies, the taken. The idea of this supernatural darkness being, this shadow shield on top of the enemy. And Alan Wake, our player character, having a flashlight that drains away this shield until it pops and then the enemy is vulnerable to normals weapons. Coming up with the idea of safe havens that are these individual light sources say, a street lamp, and this being then also a guidance mechanism for the player. You're trying to look for the next light source. You're diving into the darkness trying to get out of the safe haven. Coming up with the mechanism for these enemies to appear in the world. Calling it BETS, Bringing Enemies To The Scene. Supernatural darkness starts to appear and you will hear whispers. - What the hell was that? - [Sam Lake] And we are using this as cover to spawn the enemies to the scene. In this period of time Alan Wake went from free roaming open world with dynamic day and night cycle to a linear experience. We still had this world, this map that we had built. Essentially then we went into the map and out of that we carved out levels. These linear levels. We had this foundation of this open world to work with so in some places this tube, this linear level, is quite wide but essentially we mapped out the whole sequence of this story using the existing world. We were adding individual locations and goals into that world, but we were using the base map in there and then we were altering the day and the night. So we have some levels that happen during daytime. From my perspective, it felt wonderful with an opportunity that now we can have the normal world. - I'd shake your hand but mine are kind of full here. - [Sam Lake] We can have this quirky idyllic Americana present for the daytime scenes. You will be visiting certain locations during daytime, you are meeting NPCs, we can advance the story. And then in other levels, sometimes in that same location even, we have night time sequences where its fight for survival and forces of darkness attacking you. - Rusty, no! - I felt that at that point we finally found the genre of the game and it became an action game. On the story side, I started to find the focus. The idea that this whole thing, this darkness that is manifesting itself is a manuscript of a novel that he has written and the story in this novel is now coming true. We have pages of this book scattered around in the world and we are finding these pages and they are talking about these horrifying things and these horrifying things are actually happening and coming true. So we have this cause and effect, this story has been written now clearly this story is becoming real and its kind of fueled by this supernatural darkness. - It takes crazy to know crazy. - That's the sanest thing I've heard in a while. - I think that the learning from Alan Wake really was that, with the small group you need to have a strong vision of what you are building. And its not just enough to have this kind of a high level vision, it needs to go down to different elements inside the design. Deep enough to make sure that all of these elements actually click together, not just work individually and be cool individually. The vision needs to have an idea how they serve the whole and how they click together. How the sum of this will be more than its parts. - He's here, right? - Cool your jets nightingale, we got him. [gunshot] - And also then, when you have it, then that vision needs to be clearly communicated with all the key people in the project with all the leads they need to buy into that, they need to want to make that game a reality. And then working together they all need to, in their areas of expertise, they need to champion this idea. Because it's always a lot of work, a lot of hard work and you need that passion and people who believe in this vision and kind of see through. - Coffee's on. - [Sam Lake] I really wanted to create a main character who is not a professional action hero. A fish out of water, somebody who is not ready for this in any way and who has to struggle and find their way through this. And obviously Max Payne was this hard boiled cop. - The pills would ease the pain. - [Sam Lake] So he's used to dangerous situations and handling a gun. But for Alan Wake I wanted the hero who's not that. - That flashlight's kid stuff. - If you look at different elements in Alan Wake, thinking about him as a character, he has had this big big success in his career. He has created this best selling book series. If we digged in one layer deeper, his book series is a series about this hard boiled cop. He has gotten a lot success with that but then he feels like it's time to move on and he wants to create something else and then he suddenly can't create so he has this writer's block. I think that this element in that final story created 2008, was finding this metaphor of not personally my struggle but the whole theme's struggle, to find what Alan Wake needs to be coming out of the success of Max Payne. For me this metaphor and playing around with it and drawing inspiration of all that anxiety and struggle that we had faced finding our way through this became also kind of fuel and creative energy to push into that final form of Alan Wake story. That felt very fitting and it worked. - You must finish what you've started. - I think that what we created in the end as Alan Wake, I love it. I am really really proud of it. I think that we managed to do certain things that are exceptional in many ways. The fact that we did build an open world we built that fictional segment of Pacific Northwest landscape to be the map of the game. And it's there, yes certain areas that you can't get to lack polys, but they are still there. There is the actual map and the levels have been kind of carved out of that map. I think that you can feel that when you are playing it. I think that you can see it. If we had purposefully from the beginning gone into a linear gameplay experience, that wouldn't be there. I think that there is a sense of realness in that world when you are in a particular level, even if you can't leave the area, you can see, there are great vistas and you can just see the world all around you. Even with the dynamic day and night cycle that was built in there, it's not in the final game but wherever you are in the world the sun is in the right place. Maybe it's not something that you are aware of, but it all adds to the believability of this world and makes it more real. [dramatic music] - Hey, Is this like a secret society? - We have more active Alan Wake fans now than ever. And its a 10 years old game, which I feel is pretty exceptional that there are people still actively playing it. There are people actively talking about it, actively hoping for more. Our latest game, Control, actually takes place in the same world as Alan Wake does. We were biting our tongues and keeping it quiet beforehand but when you play Control and you explore the world of Control which by the way is not linear, it's much more open as a setting. Which I feel also has an echo of Alan Wake and obviously we are much more experienced these days. A lot of learnings from Alan Wake down the line. But yes, Control is set in the same world as Alan Wake is. And if you explore the world of Control, you will come across certain documents for the Federal Bureau of Control which is this clandestine government agency. Looking into all kinds of supernatural things, they call them altered-world events AWEs and one of these AWEs, turns out to be the events that took place in Pride Falls, at Cauldron Lake, 2010, with Alan Wake. They are investigating these things you'll learn. We have already announced that we have a DLC in the works called AWE, that actually gives you a wider glimpse into what bureau has been investigating regarding Alan Wake. For the fans of Alan Wake, through Control, we are giving a glimpse into Alan Wake for the first time in a long long while.