We've all been waiting a long...long...long time for Alan Wake, the first game from Remedy Entertainment since Max Payne 2 shipped back in 2003. Remedy president Matias Myllyrinne tried to shine some light on what took Alan Wake so long to come to fruition at DICE 2010. In short?
"Freaky prototypes," he said.
"[We] played around with some crazy things," he added.
As a result, pre-production on Alan Wake went much, much longer than Remedy anticipated. Much of the pre-production spent on these "freaky prototypes" were largely what Myllryinne called "slack innovation," where Remedy was coming up with ideas that didn't necessarily help, but some actually did and Remedy finds that period to be crucial to their internal development process.
"[We] put all our eggs in one basket and watch that basket very, very closely," he said.
Alan Wake also ran into trouble during production because Remedy had originally envisioned their psychological thriller as a sandbox adventure. About six months of work was spent building that sandbox arena. Eventually, however, they decided to scrap it.
"It wasn't working," he said. "[It] took away from cinematic aspects and rollercoaster story."
Myllryinne admitted Alan Wake could have shipped with the sandbox elements intact with a series of band-aids and design patches to lift it up, but they ended up throwing it all out.
Gamers will finally see what they've been working for all these years in May.
Keep watching for more coverage from DICE 2010 all week long.
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samaside
The hype for this game was one of the reasons I made the decision to get a 360 in the first place over a year ago now. I was totally stoked. Now, unfortunately, I'm starting to worry that it's going to be little more than a remake of Silent Hill or something. I guess we'll have to see how it goes. I still have high hopes, though, that it will work out for the best but we'll see.
mordi
Troubled production leaves me worried. I have a feeling Remedy and MS kinda miss marketed this game. I don't know exactly why or when it happened but my exceptions for this game were a lot different then what the final product is shaping up to be. I remember watching the E3 demo they had on the MS press conference and my reaction wasn't a "WOW...AWESOME" but more like "Huh??!!! I guess that's where the game's going"
Gun's, Flashlight, creepy town, dark areas, shadowy monsters, a loved one mysteriously disappearing, monstrous force...Haven't I played it before???
While I do appreciate Remedy feeling up the silent hill void I was expecting this game to not go towards the conventional way and now hearing this game is going to be rated T just adds up to my list of worries.
I am still very much interested in this game and I haven't yet condemned it so I guess we'll have to wait until March and find out for our selves. I really hope this will fill our expectations but I think people are putting way too much hope and hype into this game and I am afraid many will be disappointed.
mortalhuman
I really need you to unaxe the PC version plox.
It is really important to me that remedy support the PC again, what about modding? You guys can rule that this time :/
brian@supermortalhuman.com
PiMD360
The reason this game fits 360 so well vs PC is because of the Episodes. The game is pretty much finished and no ending has even been written. They won't even include an ending when the game ships either. So they will continue to pump out episodes as DLC, and maybe we will get a free ending DLC or not. Who knows. Can't wait though.
DrowNoble
Wish they hadn't canned the PC version....
DJOmega6
I have to admit, I'm proud of them for doing what was right for the game by scrapping what didn't work, even if it meant the gaming coming out later than previously planned. At least it never reached Duke Nukem Forever territory.
x-chicken
Me too.
Chimp91
Sweet can't wait for this game. I am interested on what exactly they were trying out but eh I don't really care at this point and I am just looking forward to playing this.
Displaying 1–8 of 8