Sam Lake Interview: How Alan Wake 2 Connects Remedy’s Universe

“OK, as Remedy we made our success on Max Payne, and Alan Wake has made his success in writing hardball crime fiction, and he has this detective character… If we are going to give this character a face, it just felt like on the meta layer of this – and there is so much meta, more than ever before – it just felt like, well, I think we need to do it this way, that I will be the character.”

Like that original Max Payne scene, this is Remedy breaking out of the bounds of traditional video game storytelling – it’s another risk, another unexpected choice. But it’s also a deeply enjoyable Easter Egg for fans of the studio. Another of those comes in the form of Quantum Break’s Shawn Ashmore, who reappears here as Tim Breaker (sounds quite similar to ‘Time Breaker’, doesn’t it?). Again, Quantum Break isn’t formally a part of Remedy’s Connected Universe, but his appearance is another nod to the studio’s past – and another part of Lake’s interest in building on older ideas.

Quantum Break came with the unique proposition of being both action game and live-action TV series within a single package, and it’s no surprise to see Alan Wake 2 attempting to recapture that idea in a new form – by creating entire scenes in live-action, on meticulously remade sets that mirror the game itself.

“I’m proud of Quantum Break, I do feel that we achieved something unique, [but] I always felt that we could have gone a lot further in bringing [the game and show] together,” says Lake. “But back then, through production realities, and scheduling and everything, that was the best we could achieve at that point. So I definitely felt after it that I want to keep on working with live-action as an element.”