If Alan Wake's TV show-like presentation isn't, well, enough like a TV show for you, here's some good news: next week, the first episode in a six-part live-action Alan Wake series will be available on Xbox Live.
Bright Falls, shot on location in Oregon, acts as a prequel to the events in the game -- which hopefully means that at least some weirdness was taking place in the game's location before the arrival of Mr. Wake. Otherwise, we'll be watching six episodes about a really pleasant town. Allaying the concern we just expressed, Microsoft promises that the series "evokes the same ghostly chills as 'Twin Peaks' did when it premiered 20 years ago this month."
The first two episodes will be available for Xbox Live Gold members on April 25, for everyone else on Xbox Live on April 26, and on brightfalls.com on April 27, with one new episode releasing each week until May 17's two-part finale. That date happens to be one day before the Xbox 360 game's release date, at which point you'll get to see the rest of the story in the game -- and the short story included with the collector's edition.
Founded in 1995, Remedy Entertainment is set to celebrate its 15th anniversary this year, along with the launch of its fourth game, Alan Wake. In contrast with many of the industry's studios, which are comfortable with putting out a new game every two years (if not more frequently), this Finnish game developer can't be rushed to completion. "Remedy is not a game factory," its website tells those looking for employment.
The company's managing director, Matias Myllyrinne, wouldn't have it any other way. "You know, this is a labor of love, at least for us," he told Joystiq during an interview at the Game Developers Conference, held last month in San Francisco. After we discussed the game's technology, its cinematic aspirations and its carefully picked cast of actors, it became evident that Alan Wake -- despite lacking "buckets and buckets of blood" -- has a heart, transplanted from the people who made it. "It's almost like you need to see it through, for your own kind of well-being as a creative team," Myllyrinne said.
Also, there definitely won't be an Alan Wake musical, so forget about it.
After five long years of development, Remedy Entertainment is weeks away from delivering on one of the "most anticipated titles of 2010." Alan Wake's long journey comes to an end on May 18 (in North America) and the Finnish developer is in full "promo" mode -- when it isn't partying it up, that is.
During a press stop in Toronto, Joystiq pressed Remedy's head of franchise development Oskari 'Ozz' Häkkinen on the hard-hitting questions: How much like a homeless Vin Diesel does the new Max Payne look, and when can players expect Alan Wake Wars to ship?
We also grabbed a few tidbits about Alan Wake's New York City flashback, dreams of Alan Wake 2 and more on Wake's planned DLC. If that kind of stuff is important to you.
Here's something, at one point, we thought we'd never write: Alan Wake has passed Microsoft certification and is on track to release May 18. The news comes via Alan Wake's community forums, where community manager Pete Papadopoulos posted some pictures of the developers celebrating and opening up a bottle of champagne they bought during development, specifically for this occasion. Who knew they even made champagne back then?
Jesting aside, there's some exciting new footage of Alan Wake -- including a rundown of its setting and combat -- just after the break.
Source - Remedy celebrates Alan Wake passing certification Source - "Building the Thriller" trailer
Alan Wake's bizarro world seeps into ours as Europe's release date for the action thriller moves up a week to May 14. Whenever Europe gets a game release before the rest of the planet, it always compels us to check with the mice on the natural state of life, the universe and everything. The North American and Japanese releases remain May 18 and 27, respectively.
After launch, Alan Wake will receive DLC episodes before the end of the year that should -- fans willing -- build a cozy, covered bridge to further adventures.
#xbox360
Microsoft slipped us word this morning that Alan Wake's European release date has been changed. Thing is, it's been changed for the better. More »
Like Remedy Entertainment told us back in January, Alan Wake's poorly lit world will be getting a few DLC "episodes" this year. What we didn't know, however, was how said episodes would fold into the game's narrative arc -- but head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen recently shed some light on them in a recent interview with Edge (via CVG), saying, "We've thought of DLC, which will be more of a bridge between season one and season two, should this first part be a success." Hakkinen here is referring to the first, yet to be released Alan Wake as "season one," banking on the interest in the first game to produce a sequel (or "second season") with DLC episodes set to bridge the narrative between the two "seasons."
And though Hakkinen doesn't exactly illuminate the details of the DLC, he does call it a "Christmas special," adding that it "will give you a different perspective on the stuff you've played in season one." If our past with Christmas specials is any indication of what we can expect from this DLC, we're just as excited as you are.
Throw another gag on the April Fools' Day fire, Remedy has entered the fray. Up for offer is Alan Wake Wars, a game that takes the taut, suspenseful bent of Alan Wake and tosses on a layer of real-time strategy. The game contains 17 maps, 24 unit types and a staggering 18 tech trees. Lots of different units are showcased in the video, including local militia, trucks and, our favorite, deadly lumberjacks. Honestly, as "real time psychological film noir action love story" games go, Alan Wake Wars looks to be on top of the pack. Check out the trailer after the break.
#pc
Supernatural thriller Alan Wake is being released on the Xbox 360, but once upon a time, it was also a PC game. That PC version is no more. Why? Well, the two teams responsible can't seem to agree. More »
Your virtual closet of Avatar wear just got some new styles, as Perfect Dark and Alan Wake gear is now available in the Avatar Marketplace. You can peruse the usual -- shirts, pants, helmets and outfits -- or if props is more your thing, there's a variety to choose from.
"Elvis" you can see above, but there's also a flare, some pages of a manuscript or even an Alan Wake book. Like, a book that says Alan Wake on it that your Avatar looks at. Head into the Avatar Marketplace to see all of the new stuff.
Source -- Perfect Dark Avatar gear on Xbox Live [Xbox.com] Source -- Alan Wake Avatar gear on Xbox Live [Xbox.com]
As revealed during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, tormented writer Alan Wake will continue his dimly lit journey in the form of post-launch downloadable episodes. After the internally episodic thriller hits shelves on May 18, Remedy Entertainment will extend it with at least two episodes in 2010. The scope of subsequent episodes and the duration of DLC support will hinge on the audience, of course, but Remedy managing director Matias Myllyrinne envisions a substantial engagement.
"I think it'll depend a lot on the audience, but certainly we want to -- if we're successful -- we want to do a large "Season 2," if you will, at some point," he said in an interview with Joystiq. "Right now, I'm not allowed to say what we're doing exactly this year. But we're going to have more than one episode come out this year."
Once the full game is complete and the team has a chance to gauge acceptance and feedback, Remedy Entertainment will shed some more light on its plans. We'll share ours with you right now: Expect to see the full Matias Myllyrinne interview on Joystiq later this week.
CaptiveMotion has announced that it has completed work on the facial animation for Alan Wake. The company provided facial capture services for the developers at Remedy to use in the upcoming thriller. One of the more intriguing aspects of the announcement is that the facial capturing done by CaptiveMotion was actually done separately from the full body motion capture used in the game, which was completed six months prior. As a result, CaptiveMotion had to "present the data in a fashion that Remedy could easily integrate it into their pipeline."
The capture technology itself is called Embody, which allows up to 1,600 markers to be mapped on a single motion capture actor. See it in action in the (somewhat bizarre) video after the break.
New footage of Remedy's upcoming mystery thriller Alan Wake has found its way online, showcasing some of the demonic thoughts scrawled on paper by the game's title character. Five minutes of footage found at French site GameBlog.fr (posted after the break) showcases some gorgeous environments and some of the action we experienced at Microsoft's X10.
Considering half of the Joystiq staff wasn't even born yet when the game was first announced*, we're just happy to helpAlan Wake figure out what's happening in the small mid-western town of Bright Falls.
But we're not expecting a gruesome adventure, as the ESRB has rated Alan Wake T for Teen. We can't blame Alan: when you're fighting for your life you need as many gamers as you can get on your side.
During last week's X10 event in San Francisco, I previewed the latest build of Remedy's third-person supernatural action-thriller, Alan Wake. The scene I played takes place later in the game (not the beginning), so any chance of getting wrapped up in the mystery of the over-arching storyline was not happening; not to mention the demo was relatively short and, oh, the fact that I was preoccupied by the axe-wielding maniac chasing me.
A representative gave me a brief recap of what had brought Wake to the specific location of the demo level, where the scene kicked off with a "Previously on Alan Wake ... " montage -- like we'd seen before at E3 2009 -- but most of it made little sense out of context. The only thing I was sure of was that I needed to escape from the car I'd just crashed after swerving to avoid someone in the road (who, of course, vanished when Wake looked in his rear-view). After I climbed out, Wake's voice-over cued me to head through the woods to reach a gas station and get help. That's when things started to get really weird.
X10 was a special day for Remedy's long-in-development Alan Wake: the release date was announced at last, officially bringing the psychological thriller within a few months of release. On this occasion, Matias Myllyrinne, managing director of Remedy, shared his thoughts with Joystiq about episodic gaming, the inevitabillity of digital distribution, and high-profile competition.
Joystiq: It was announced earlier that there would be episodes of Alan Wake.
Matias Myllyrinne: It was just announced in CES by Robbie Bach.
Did you guys take a look at the experiment with Fable 2? That was surprising. What are your thoughts on that?
I think it's interesting to see how those new forms of enjoying entertainment -- how to distribute that, and get through to people in the way they want to enjoy it. I think it'll be really cool to see what happens with the Fable episodic delivery stuff. I think the jury's still out on how people want to consume media such as games. I think it's also an evolving thing, as well. If you think back to music, it's not that long ago that we all bought CDs. That changed. I thought it would happen like in two years, but it actually took more like seven for the music industry to shift and tilt.
According to gaming news site Strategy Informer, Microsoft finally dismissed the possibility of a PC port for Remedy's upcoming episodic thriller, Alan Wake. An unnamed Microsoft representative reportedly told Informer, "some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realized that the most compelling way to experience Alan Wake was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive."
We've contacted Microsoft to get our own first-hand confirmation of the report. We'll also try to find out why Alan Wake is so afraid of being "intimate." It's like ... just let us in, man.
You didn't think the X10 news was over, did you? Alan Wake, as you know, is always fashionably late to the party, and these latest screens are just another example of that fact. In them we get another quick glimpse at the havoc occurring in the small town of Bright Falls. Alan Wake is scheduled to hit Stateside on May 18, in multiple flavors.
One of the more substantial pieces of news from Microsoft's X10 megaton clusterbomb: A release date for Remedy's psychological thriller Alan Wake has been announced. The game's seemingly endless development cycle will finally terminate on May 18, when the game lands in US retail outlets. Our friends overseas won't have to wait much longer than that to get their Wake on -- it's being released in Europe on May 21.
In addition, X10 brought word of the game's attractive pre-order bonuses, which include "exclusive content such as avatar gear, an Xbox LIVE theme, and a 'making of' video." We're not sure we want to deck out our Xbox 360's background with shadowy monsters. We're big fans of our current, non-terrifying theme.
Can you feel it? After all the delays and waiting, can you feel how close Alan Wake is? If the reality of the situation hasn't fully sunken in yet, we've got a new trailer after the break, slated to be shown during today's X10 festivities.
As for the trailer itself, it looks pretty good, right? Not a ton of gameplay, but it certainly rams home the creepiness and the importance of light in combat. Here's hoping we get some more details when the trailer is shown for real later today.
