No Monsters or Zombies for Alan Wake

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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No Monsters or Zombies for Alan Wake


Gamers can expect less action in Max Payne [http://www.alanwake.com/], says Remedy lead developer Oskari Hakkinen, and despite the spooky atmosphere there won't be any monsters roaming around, either.

Along with the lower action quotient, Hakkinen said in an interview with Silent Hill [http://www.gamer.no]. The game will be divided into "episodes" similar to a television show, with each having a unique cliffhanger ending. Action won't be entirely absent, of course, and there will even be some gunplay, but players will have no monsters or zombies to contend with even in the "nightmare" sequences.

"Bullet-time," the now-ubiquitous slow-motion action scenes Remedy [http://www.remedygames.com/] brought to Max Payne, won't be present in Alan Wake. Instead, the game's new mechanic will be based around light. Hakkinen wouldn't reveal any details but he said day/night cycles will be very important to gameplay. "Light is a very important element in Alan Wake, and it is used in all elements in the game," he said, noting that Remedy is taking an all-new approach to integrating light into the game. A dynamic weather system will similarly affect various aspects of gameplay.

"This is a thriller... We have no monsters and we do not have zombies that jump on you," Hakkinen said in the Google-translated interview [http://translate.google.com.au/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamer.no%2Farticle.php%3FarticleId%3D764&sl=no&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]. "It is not so simple. We bring something to the psychological game, and it is something new. It is easy to create a game where a zombie scares the life of you, but to make this psychological, you must have the right atmosphere, and you must have people you care about."

He said he hoped the game would be out "very soon" but refused to speculate beyond that. He did say, however, that despite the long development period, Alan Wake would not appear technologically dated when it hit the shelves. Alan Wake is currently in development for the PC and Xbox 360 [http://www.xbox.com], and will hopefully be released someday.

via: IGN [http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/966/966715p1.html]


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Rezfon

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Feb 25, 2008
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Alone in the dark did an episodic style, and quite frankly it was horrible. I just wanted to play the game without all of these long drawn out bits in the middle telling you what happened last time, when last time was only 5 minutes ago.
 

Echolocating

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Jul 13, 2006
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No gratuitous violence? No hordes of monsters to kill? Strong focus on story? Eerie setting? Me, posting thoughts in the form of questions?

My interest is piqued.
 

RogueDarkJedi

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Dec 28, 2008
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Weird, because the trailer did have these ghost/spirit/monster things. So are they not in the game anymore?
 

Pandalisk

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Jan 25, 2009
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Why Cant You Have Both a good story and action! What is so tricky with that combination? why do so many games fail epicly at it?
 

Echolocating

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Pandalisk said:
Why Cant You Have Both a good story and action! What is so tricky with that combination? why do so many games fail epicly at it?
Why are you so worried about this game not having loads of violent action?
 

sturryz

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Nov 17, 2007
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so wait, it's going to pretty much be almost like a point and click adventure game?

count me in, i love those things.
 

KDR_11k

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Feb 10, 2009
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So a random game doesn't have zombies... Can I make you post a press release when I stub my toe?
 

Pandalisk

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Echolocating said:
Pandalisk said:
Why Cant You Have Both a good story and action! What is so tricky with that combination? why do so many games fail epicly at it?
Why are you so worried about this game not having loads of violent action?
I enjoy violence? i honestly dont know this game well so if this story is any good i might get it.
KDR_11k said:
So a random game doesn't have zombies... Can I make you post a press release when I stub my toe?
Yea i was just thinking that, whys this game so special lots of games have sacraficed violence and action for story
 

sgtshock

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Feb 11, 2009
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I totally forgot about this game. How long has it been in development again? (Also nice choice of image).
 

ratix2

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SomeBritishDude said:
The more I hear about this game, the more it sounds like Alone in the Dark. That can't be a good thing.
the older aitd games were pretty good actually, new one sucks but the orginals were pretty good.

the more i hear the more interested i am. i like the idea of completly ditching "industry standards" in favor of making a game that actually gets to you and REALLY scares you instead of this "oh a zombie just jumped out of nowhere" shit that plagues "horror" games these days.
 

lohac

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Nov 8, 2007
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As has been previously noted, nothing new under the sun. They said from the beginning that the greatest inspiration for Alan Wake was Twin Peaks and its like. So it will definitely concentrate on the adventure game, or at least slow thriller side, but definitely not shooting as a primary goal.

Also sgtshock, ever since Max Payne 2 was finished, that would make it over 4 years, I think.
 

Avatar Roku

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Jul 9, 2008
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Wait, so the game isn't going to feature monsters jumping out at you, just a scary atmosphere? I like the idea, but it will probably be more effective if they don't tell us that there are no monsters. Now we won't fear anything.
 
Mar 26, 2008
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Is that a screen from Thief I see there?

It's going to be interesting to see how they pull this off. I reminds me a bit of the movie In The Mouth Of Madness; that was piss your pants scary but the main character didn't actually waste any monsters or baddies.
 

scotth266

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Jan 10, 2009
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Alan Wake, will you ever be released?
I've been waiting on this one quite a long time, and I can't stand it any more. Please be good....
 

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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That is completely the wrong picture. It's supposed to be an Alan Wake screen but somehow the image from the Spector post ended up there instead. ("Somehow" meaning I screwed it up.) But it does seem related to the article in that weird, tangential way I like, so I'm leaving it.

Alan Wake was announced in May 2005, so the four year estimate is pretty close to the mark. That's four years that we've known about it, actual development time is almost certainly longer. It makes the Duke Nukem Forever easter egg in Max Payne 2 rather sweetly ironic.
 

Labyrinth

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Oct 14, 2007
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I have high hopes, but low expectations. IF they pull this off I think it could well rank in the very top of my games list. If not.. heheh.
 

Gormers1

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A short video about the game, for the unknowing: http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/lifestyle/26982.html