Finnish gaming mag Pelaaja recently had a chance to visit Remedy for the first time in 4 years.
In the indepth interview we find out some new information that was still up in the air. Here’s a quick summary of it all:
- Alan Wake is not late. Before E3 2009, Remedy have never given a release date and all previous dates found floating on the web were made up by other sources. In fact Remedy have never missed a release date for any of their previous games and does not intend to with Alan Wake. Alan Wake will be released Spring 2010 for the Xbox 360.
- The original vision hasn’t changed but the way the game plays out has been experimented with along the development process. One of the major changes is that the game is no longer a sandbox type of game where the player can roam freely (ala Grand Theft Auto). Since Remedy wanted to focus heavily on having a compelling storyline, sandbox style gameplay does not mix well with what Remedy wanted to achieve. Remedy stressed that this does not mean the game will be linear and that you have to follow a set path throughout the game. “The player must not feel they’re being pulled from strings. The player must feel like they’re making the decisions themselves”.
- Throughout the game the player will be finding the missing pages from Alan Wakes new manuscript, however not all the pages will be found through the normal game’s missions. Similar to how Bioshock handled it’s audio logs, Alan Wake will allow you to roam freely around looking for manuscript pages.
- Remedy has said from the beginning that light will be an important element of the gameplay. Alan Wake’s most important weapons are his flashlight and other light sources found in the game world. The dark force can possess both the residents and animals in Bright Falls and make even lifeless objects attack Alan. They are vulnerable only in the light. (Just an addition to this. Light seems to strip the shield that the darkness adds and once that shield is stripped you can use conventional weapons, like a gun, to get rid of the enemy -ADM)
- Even though Microsoft is publishing Alan Wake, Remedy still own all rights to the game and Alan Wake is planned to be only the beginning of the story. Remedy arn’t covering the fact that they want to expand out into other forms of media as well. Although Remedy have yet to make any decisions on this.
- Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Remedy haven’t spoken about the PC version of the game yet and the release of a PC version is up in the air. When asked about it Remedy replied saying that both Microsoft and them are only speaking about the Xbox 360 version at the moment.
That’s about it. The rest of the article (which you can read here) talks about the demo that was shown at E3 and how it’s riddled with little details that we all love from a Remedy game.
Thanks to u233 from the Pelaaja site for the image. Also thanks to AnttiApina, Dennis and Ruutu from the Alan Wake forums for all the above information.
