Sam Lake says Alan Wake II will share a lot of light about Remedy's shared universe

[John Elden Ring]

In a new interview, Remedy creative director Sam Lake delves deeper into the decision to introduce a second character to the mix. The idea is not to get away from Alan or the series' history – quite the contrary. Remedy is now pushing a full-on connected universe, and aims to tap into tons of lore and story threads from past games like the original Alan Wake and Control. That info dump could be intimidating though, so the Saga part of the game is designed to be less lore-heavy, less trippy, in order to draw new players in. In other words, the plan is to grab ‘em with a more typical serial killer tale, then hit ‘em with the real mindscrew stuff.

“While [Alan Wake 2] is a sequel to Alan Wake, it's also a Remedy Connected Universe experience. So, it's connected not only to Alan Wake, but also to Control. With all of this in the background, it's critical to us that it's very easily approachable for new players that have never played any Remedy games before.

The game begins with FBI agents coming to this small-town setting in Washington State to investigate a string of ritualistic killings -- a serial killer, essentially. This is something that's familiar to everybody, and for us, it felt like a perfect starting point to get the new players, and our fans, into this experience. That being said, our fans of our previous games are really, really important to us and we want to keep on telling stories from the rich foundation the Remedy Connected Universe provides. So... we get everybody in, and the story is self-contained enough that everybody can be excited about it and understand it. For the returning fans, there is a ton of lore, ton of exploration, ton of threads that have started in Alan Wake and Control that we'll pick up and take further.”