Alan Wake 2 is finally official. Finnish developer Remedy used the recent Game Awards to reveal a 58-second teaser trailer for the upcoming game. The Xbox 360 action hit Alan Wake will finally get a sequel in 2023, a full 13 years after the original game launched.
With hindsight, perhaps we should have seen this announcement coming. After all, Remedy has recently given Alan Wake a mini-revival, with the titular character first appearing in DLC for Control, then receiving a full-fledged remaster for current- and last-generation consoles.
That remaster marked the first time Alan Wake appeared on PlayStation hardware. It seems as though the character's Xbox and PC exclusivity is truly broken, as the sequel is destined for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC via the Epic Games Store.
While the first game and its standalone DLC, American Nightmare, were more action games with horror elements, it sounds like this sequel will flip things around. The trailer implies that, and Sam Lake, creative director at Remedy confirmed as much after it rolled. He described Alan Wake 2 as the studio’s “first ever survival horror game”.
“The first game had horror elements to it, but it was an action game,” he continued. “And we feel that this is the perfect genre to bring together the story and gameplay closer than ever before. Because the horror story is at the very heart of this, and it’s a psychologically layered deep mystery.”
That’s about all we’re getting for now, though. Lake said, appropriately enough, that the team would “be going dark to work on this.” He promised more information in summer 2022, however.
It just goes to show that you shouldn’t ever give up hope on your old favorites being revived, no matter how much time has passed. Indeed, next year will see the launch of Stalker 2, 12 whole years after Call of Pripyat wowed PC gamers. You will, however, need to use up a ridiculous amount of Xbox Series space to play it.
