Alan Wake 2 would be ‘much quicker’ than first game, says Remedy

Remedy Entertainment franchise development head Oskari Hakkinen talks about the relative ease of making new Alan Wake games now that the tech is in place, but stops short of promising Alan Wake 2.

February 14, 2012 11:15 AM7

Remedy Entertainment hasn’t announced a full sequel to Alan Wake, but suggests that if one does come it won’t take nearly as long as the original, and it will probably stay exclusive to the Xbox 360. The developer says that its experience using the tools to make Alan Wake’s American Nightmare has proven they can turn a game around in a shorter time-frame.

“Development wise, five years is developing an engine, the tech, the tools, all of the things you need to do to do a story, a character, other NPC characters and so forth,” franchise development head Oskari Hakkinen told Eurogamer. “Once those things are done it’s a lot easier. We’re seeing it already with American Nightmare, which was only eight months of development, and we completely changed the setting. It’s in Arizona now. It’s not in the Pacific Northwest.

“The answer is, if we were to do a sequel to Alan Wake, it certainly is a much quicker and easier development cycle than the original Alan Wake, because the engine is created for the game. The overall fiction and the universe is already created.”

While Hakkinen stopped short of confirming Alan Wake 2, he did say the franchise is “really close to our hearts” and promised that we’ll be seeing “more of Alan Wake in the future.” This echoes recent comments from CEO Matias Myllyrinne.

As for multiplatform plans, Hakkinen Alan Wake and American Nightmare will “never” hit PlayStation platforms. “Those are Xbox exclusives.” Platforms for the eventual Alan Wake 2 are more fluid, but Remedy sounds committed to Microsoft. “I’m not going to say never, but at the same time I’ll say there are no plans. There are no conversations and no plans going on for multi-platform.”

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare will hit Xbox Live Arcade on February 22 for $15 (1200 MSP), as part of the XBLA House Party promotion.