The developer now admitted that the first game was originally built on an open-world engine.
Alan Wake was developed on an open-world engine until Remedy Entertainment decided to reject the sandbox design and take a more linear approach.
“The biggest mistake we made [while developing Alan Wake] was following a sandbox design. It simply did not fit with our story-driven focus,” said the head of franchise direction Oskari Häkkinen.
“A thriller is very much like a rollercoaster. You need those build-ups to make the plunges feel all the more exhilarating. We just weren’t getting this in a sandbox design because all the game-istic things you need were detracting from the story being the focal point. Because the environments were naturally much larger, we could make reference to things that could be seen in the distance and so foreshadow events. We could create landmarks so the player always had a sense of direction,” Häkkinen said.
“Having flexibility within the environments also gave us the opportunity to make any given path as wide or as narrow as we pleased. It allowed us to play around with gameplay – narrow stealth areas like when the cops are chasing Wake, and wider areas to allow exploration and that sense of: ‘Oh shit, I’m lost… what’s in the woods?’ So, yeah, it resulted in a much better game and it removed the linear feeling on the whole.”
■ Jensen6
