THE GAME
Why the name "Alan Wake"?
The game is about a horror writer who battles with insomnia, the stories he writes are based on his nightmares and as the story progresses his insomnia is miraculously cured, but his nightmares also return in which they slowly turn to reality. He ends up fighting to stay awake. A. Wake.. Alan Wake.
What is the story about?
Alan Wake is a bestselling horror writer. Early on in his career, his fiance Alice, was his muse. When he'd first met her, he had started to see strange dreams which he used as material for his first book. The book was a big success. It was a dream come true.
But then Wake's fiancé vanished without a trace. Wake was devastated. After that, he couldn't write anymore. His dreams stopped and he began to suffer from insomnia.
At the beginning of the game, Wake travels to a sleep clinic to seek treatment for his condition. The secluded clinic is located near the small town of Bright Falls, Washington, far away from the stressful urban life-st yle Receiving treatment at the clinic, Wake is able to sleep again. At the clinic, he meets a mysterious woman who is the very image of his missing fiancé, uncannily so. At once, his dreams return, this time as terrible nightmares. Wake begins to write again: a new book based on those nightmares.
But something is horribly, horribly wrong.
Impossibly, the town of Bright Falls starts to change to something awful that bears a close resemblance to Wake's new book. Wake ends up fighting for his life with a gun and a flashlight in his hands, trying to understand what's happening.
Is it Third Person or First Person perspective?
You take control of Alan using a third person perspective. It is yet unknown whether you can switch to first person or any other view during the game.
Will there be Multiplayer?
There will be no multiplayer in this game.
"We have all kinds of ideas related to replayability, but we want to prototype them further before we'll talk about them." - Sam Lake
"We'd much rather give the players a great single-player game, than a mediocre single and multiplayer game." -Petri Järvilehto
How interactive is Bright Falls?
The player can explore buildings and talk with Non Player Characters (NPC's).
How is the game structured?
The story of Alan Wake is made up like a continuing season of a TV series, consisting episodes where the story unfolds as the player completes missions. Some of the episodes end up in a c lassic cliffhanger, while others are calmer, concentrating on character development and Alan's past. Although you can play the game in one-episode portions, that isn't Remedy's ultimate goal. "We want to give the game an irresistible 'one more episode' atmosphere" lead designer Petri Järvilehto says.
The plot of Alan Wake is tied in episodes, but the game world isn't. You can move freely around Bright Falls and the surrounding nature without any urgency. There is much to explore in the huge environment and by talking to the residents you might discover unexpected secrets. "However, Alan Wake isn't a Bioware RPG" Järvilehto clarifies. "The storytelling doesn't advance if the player wonders aimlessly around the woods."
Is the game similar to Grand Theft Auto?
"Alan Wake is more tightly character-driven and story-oriented. Meaning that the player's goals and missions are closely focused around Alan Wake and his story. Also, the setting, the tone and the game being an action thriller all set it clearly apart from the GTA games." - Sam Lake
"Intense cinematic action is something that we love to do, and Alan Wake features tense combat gameplay as well, but all things considered the game has a lot more emphasis on adventure and exploration that what Max Payne did." - Petri Järvilehto
"Driving is an integral part of the game" - Petri Järvilehto
Will there be wildlife in the game?
Yes.
Max Payne has bullet-time, what will Alan Wake have?
"We believe that our approach with Alan Wake will provide the players with a new take with the combat st yle and gameplay. We're not revealing any details yet though." - Sam Lake
"The combat is not purely about gunplay. The use of light plays an important role in the combat, and different light sources provide new gameplay angles there." - Petri Järvilehto
The fight scenes in the game emphasize on quality and uniqueness, not quantity. "Even the risk of having to get involved in a fight has to feel suspenseful" says Petri Järvilehto. "One of our biggest challenges has been to try and turn a fighting encounter that lasts only for a couple of seconds into something that feels thrilling even after a minute."
Alan Wake is a free-roaming game, will there be parts of the map to unlock?
"We'll open more of the game world as the game progresses. The area is so large, that we want the players to become familiar with a smaller subset of the world, before we introduce new locations and new areas." - Sam Lake
Are there alternate methods to completing the missions?
"The basic idea with the free-roaming world is that we give the player goals, and then the player can go about achieving those goals in the way he chooses." - Sam Lake
How does light have an effect on gameplay?
Light will weaken or hurt Wake's enemies, and creatively taking advantage of any and all light sources within Alan Wake's grim world ought to be one of the interesting aspects of play.
It's not that simple however, as Alan is hypersensitive to light since he was born. "The events fall under one big shadow from the beginning: the dilemma of what is real and what is merely a nightmarish figment of Alan Wake's imagination" says Lake.
"A setting sun doesn't bode well for Alan Wake" says writer Lake. "During nightfall the player has to either equip himself properly or look for shelter."
Are there any loading times?
No. Utilising multiple cores, the game will seamlessly generate vast areas of the game world for the graphics card to render.
Where is Bright Falls located?
Bright Falls is located in Washington, USA.
Where did the ideas for Alan Wake come from?
"The TV-series Twin Peaks is one of our sources of inspiration. The location in the game is similar, an idyllic small town in the state of Washington with something threatening waiting under the surface. The TV show also had an excellent nightmarish atmosphere. The works of the author Stephen King is another source of inspiration. He has used the idea of a writer whose life turns to a nightmare in several of his stories." - Sam Lake
How long will it take to complete Alan Wake?
The story arc of Max 2 was modeled after that of a movie. With Alan Wake our template is a season of a TV-series. Alan Wake, season 1, if you will. Remedy is definately aiming for a longer gameplay duration.
Will Alan Wake use the comic-book sty le of narrative like Max Payne?
"The graphic novel screens, we feel, were a Max Payne specific thing. With Alan Wake we want to integrate the story more tightly to the gameplay. There will be cinematic in-game cutscenes, but more importantly there will be scripted events, and we want to have the important NPCs around in the game as much as possible while the player is in control. Voice-over narration was a very useful tool that we used in Max Payne, and it's something we are considering for Alan Wake as well, but done in the ****that's quite different from Max Payne." - Sam Lake
Alan will narrate his thoughts throughout the game as a means of character and story development. "Narration was one of the story telling tools that we used in Max Payne and with Wake, it's such a fantastic tool because he's a writer who's writing out the story itself. It works out really well." - Petri Järvilehto
Will there be any Alan Wake sequels?
Yes. Alan Wake is going to be part of a series. Each game is part of a "season" of a TV-series ****template.
There will also be multiple endings for Alan Wake, setting the story up for future episodes.
How large is the game world?
36 square miles (10 x 10 kilometres).
How many DVD's will the final game be on?
Alan Wake will fit on a single DVD.
TECHNOLOGY
Are Remedy supporting modding of the game?
"We'd definitely want to, but we can't guarantee that at this stage. We're using so much different middleware components, that there may be some legal issues with the release of the tools." - Petri Järvilehto
How far is the draw distance in the game world?
Currently around 2 kilometres (1.2 - 1.3 miles).
What graphical methods will be implemented in the game?
Complete modeling of atmospheric scattering, fully volumetric shadows that are projected through the entire world, full weather modeling, day/night time cycles, ambient occlusion, normal mapping, high dynamic rendering, bloom, depth of field and loads of different pixel-shader effects.
What engine is Alan Wake using?
It's an in-house engine developed by Remedy, known as the Alan Wake Engine and incorporates the Havok physics component. The game is being designed with five threads: rendering, audio, streaming, physics and terrain tessellation. One core processor can be dedicated to physical calculations.
Does the game support DirectX 10?(NEW)
Remedy have not announced anything on this subject.
Alan Wake FAQ
Notice the "NEW" on that last thing. That is a retraction of their previous comments saying the game wouldn't be DX10(the FAQ used to say that the game would NOT do DX10. As you can see they changed that.
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