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Shocking! But the new Alan Wake isn't a sequel. "Fans of the franchise will be excited to learn that, yes, more Wake is coming!" the game's developer told website Joystiq. "But to be absolutely certain to avoid confusion, this next Wake installment will not be Alan Wake 2. But neither will it be DLC." [Joystiq] More »

Earlier today it was discovered on a LinkedIn profile that Alan Wake 2 might be in production...

CG character animator Althea Suarez Gata spent exactly one month at Halon Entertainment, a "previsualization and technology company" whose credits include the Halo: Reach "Deliver Hope" live-action short and a bunch of big-budget Hollywood stuff. In April 2011, just last month, she worked on "Untitled Alien Project" and ... what's this? A video game project titled "Alan Wake 2." Gata's duties are listed simply as "In-Game Cinematic" so it's hard to glean much beyond the whole it's Alan Wake 2 part.

The first and last time we caught wind of a sequel to our number three game of 2010 was when Remedy's head of franchise development Oskari Häkkinen said, "We definitely want to do it. We have great ideas for it. I can see [writer Mikko Rautalahti] here twiddling his thumbs with his ideas for Alan Wake 2." For awhile, that faint glimmer of sequel light in the poor sales darkness was enough to sustain us but only now, with the taste of this latest morsel, do we realize how starved we've been. We've reached out to Remedy for a comment on the listing and also just to check in on how Alan's been doing.

Speaking at a GDC panel earlier this year, Remedy's Markus Maki discussed the development of Alan Wake, namely that the game was originally planned as a multiplatform release, PC and PS3 included. As reported by CVG, Maki noted that Remedy had to maintain a narrow "focus" to get the project done, which meant staying light on features -- no multiplayer, etc. -- and eventually agreeing to become a Microsoft exclusive.

Regarding the planned multiplatform release, Maki stated that Microsoft's offer to publish the game pulled "one big technological effort, the PS3, out of the equation," thus allowing Remedy to focus on a single platform. That said, Maki added that moving to a single platform "changed the technology risk to a business risk - but that's a subject for a different talk altogether." Ouch.

Meanwhile, the PC version of Alan Wake, for reasons we may never fully comprehend, remains (appropriately) shrouded in darkness.

#alanwake Big-budget thriller Alan Wake (above) was years in development. It was eagerly anticipated. Then the game's studio, Remedy, released it. And now? Why not put out an iPhone game. More »

Turns out we'd been thinking of "episodic" gaming the wrong way. Episodic pioneers like Telltale long-since realized that consumers won't stick around episode to episode unless they buy the season upfront; so, episodic gaming isn't so much about a new business model as it is about a new (well, for gaming at least) method of storytelling. And that's where Alan Wake comes in.

When Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment announced it was turning in wronged NYPD cop Max Payne's badge and gun, only to pick up mystery writer Alan Wake's uh, pen ... and hoodie ... it was clear something was different. Over the game's prolonged five-year development cycle, Alan Wake morphed from an open-world, sandbox-style game set in the Pacific Northwest's fictional town of Bright Falls to a carefully scripted, episodic creation that had more in common with Twin Peaks than Grand Theft Auto.

As part of its ongoing "Countdown to New Year's" promotion, Xbox Live has reduced the prices of both Alan Wake DLC episodes -- The Signal and The Writer -- by more than fifty percent. You can grab the two-part epilogue now at 200 MS Points ($2.50) apiece. If you're going to spend as much as $5 watching a nocturnal, has-been writer trying to escape his own plot twists, you're better off with Alan Wake than M. Night Shyamalan.

The tenuously Alan Wake-branded "Rain Coat and Pants" avatar clothing set has also been reduced to 120 MS Points ($1.50), but we'd suggest saving that change for a rainy day instead. Like, when there's actual rain outside.

A Wacom tablet, Photoshop, and a burning love for Alan Wake's live-action prequel Bright Falls are all that YouTube user J3sseM needed to create this time-lapse video of Mr. Wake's portrait (real-life Finnish actor Ilkka Villi). Oh, right, and lots of artistic talent. That probably helped too.

In a recent interview with Designing Sound, the audio team behind Alan Wake revealed much about their process creating the game's creepy soundscape. One of the more interesting bits in the interview involves the field recording that was done to capture some of the nature sounds of the forest. Pete Comley, a freelance sound designer hired for the project, actually lives in Washington and recorded sounds in many of the forests on which Alan Wake's environments are based.

"Some of the recording was done very late at night in environments very similar to the ones Alan Wake tromps through, far in the woodsy backcountry," said Comley. "I had to keep reminding myself that there were no such things as "the Taken" when I heard the sound of elk crackling through the underbrush in the moonlit darkness (or even worse, total darkness)," he said, adding, "Making this game scared the daylights out of me more than once since I feel like I live where it takes place."

Check out the full, exhaustive interview for more on Alan Wake's audio design process, including how the team approached creating the sound of light, the Dark Presence and the Taken.

Amazon has been dropping deals this week like it's trying to single-handedly stimulate the games industry. Today's "Prelude to Black Friday" offering from the online retailer features several special edition games at deep discounts, including Alan Wake: Limited Edition for a mere $30 (down from $80). That's the same price (a.k.a. 2400 Microsoft Points) the standard game will cost as a download when it arrives on Xbox Live's Games on Demand next Tuesday, November 23 (sans access to "The Signal" DLC, which is included in the LE).

Halo: Reach - Legendary Edition is also on sale, for a reasonable $75 (50-percent off), as the day's lightning deal, which expires at 5PM ET. Other all-day discounts on Amazon include the special edition bundles for Dead Rising 2, Modern Warfare 2 and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Head past the break to peruse our galleries of some of these limited editions ... if you haven't already clicked over to Amazon!

#xbox360 Alan Wake, which released May 18, arrives on the Xbox Live Marketplace's Games on Demand service six months later. More »

We've said it many times and in many ways: Alan Wake is pretty great. For a mere $20, Buy.com is offering new copies of the game, a positively wonderful deal. Since they're new, they should have a free code for the first DLC 'The Signal.' We'd kinda like a sequel, so go buy a copy.

IGN recently visited Remedy's headquarters in Finland to discuss the successes and failures of Alan Wake. According to Remedy's Matias Myllyrine, the team is very happy with the "mood and the story and the setting" of the game. While the project underwent significant changes during development -- it was originally an open world game, for example -- Myllyrine believes it remains "very close" to the original vision "in terms of feel, mood and atmosphere."

As for failure, Myllyrine wished that Alan Wake's marketing would have had "an even crisper communication of what the game does," adding that it could have used "stronger advertising about what's unique about this game." We'd certainly agree that a sequel -- should it see the light of day -- needs stronger marketing, but we have another piece of advice as well: Don't release your game on the same day as Red Dead Redemption.

Remedy on the successes and failures of its horror spectacular.

#xbox360 Alan Wake is not a shoe-in for Game of the Year 2010, but these ads for the exclusive Xbox 360 thriller are so lovely they deserve some sort of high-caliber 2010 praise. More »

#videogames Back when I played through Alan Wake I heaped on the accolades. It redefined interactive storytelling, I wrote. I said it likely won't be topped in 2010. More »

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." This advice from Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, would prove useful to anyone in the business of storytelling -- anyone but Alan Wake. A sip of reality would do the ill-tempered writer some good, now that he finds himself in a drunk stumble towards the end of a story that began in May.

In "The Writer," the final downloadable episode for Alan Wake, developer Remedy faces a problem that creeps in at the climax of any thriller. With the air cleared of mystery, there's much less impetus to march through the forests of Bright Falls in search of obscured answers. Remedy reaches for the carpet now, taking hold of its reality-with-a-twist setting before twisting it some more, until the world hangs upside-down.

We've known since May that Alan Wake's second downloadable content extension would be titled "The Writer." Last night, Gametrailers told us it'll get here Oct. 12. The pack costs 560 Microsoft Points. More »

Courtesy of the below-embedded trailer for "The Writer" - the purported final piece of Alan Wake DLC - comes the release date and, with it, the end of Alan's journey, both narratively and (for now?) commercially. Come October 12, you'll once again rejoin Alan Wake in his nightmare world, a strange place populated by photosensitive murderers and floating words, and "end the nightmare" as the trailer proclaims. Like "The Signal," the game's first DLC episode, "The Writer" will cost a reasonable 560 Microsoft bucks ($7 Earth bucks) and feature "intense action." After watching the Bright Falls lighthouse explode a bunch of dudes in the trailer, we're going to agree with that assessment.

Alan Wake's "The Writer" DLC may be the last we see of Mr. Wake in downloadable form, according to Evil Avatar. Remedy head Matias Myllyrinne apparently told the site that The Writer would "conclude things" (Evil Av's words) and, like the last DLC episode, will feature "intense action" (Myllyrinne's words). Remedy has yet to confirm the report as of publishing.

Even if The Writer is to be the last DLC for Alan Wake, Remedy has certainly expressed interest in an episodic, digitally distributed release of the full game at some point. Additionally, a recent interview with Remedy resulted in a fuzzy answer to the question of additional Alan Wake DLC beyond the upcoming episode. With any luck, Remedy will paint a clearer explanation soon.

#clips I have no information that anyone is actually building this for PC, but it's amusing to consider. By YouTube user AnttiApinaPro, seen by reader Morris. More »

We find ourselves in a bit of a precarious situation -- we've always thought the songs that play at the end of Alan Wake's episodes are delightful little treats, so we don't want to forecast the ending track of the game's upcoming DLC chapter, "The Writer." We do know what said track is, though, and we desperately want to tell you. If you don't mind the minor spoiler, continue reading past the jump.

Alan Wake was one of the victims of Red Dead Redemption's retail shootout earlier this year, but Remedy's Managing Director Matias Myllyrinne isn't bitter about it. Speaking to Joystiq at GDC Europe, the studio head expressed, "RDR is a fantastic game, due credit to Rockstar, they deserve it. For us, Wake clicked with gamers and a lot of the reviewers out there. I think it will continue to sell as folks learn about it."

Myllyrinne expressed hope that the world of Wake would be something that Remedy could continue building on in the future. He couldn't make any announcements on future plans for Mr. Wake, but after seeing the strong reaction from the audience to the game, he feels Remedy established the key things it wanted to do with Wake -- "as a form of entertainment and art." Speaking directly to the numbers and the cost of Wake's five-year production, he said, "Commercially, the numbers will make sense in the end."

The internally episodic narrative of Alan Wake would lend itself well to online distribution (perhaps following in Fable 2's footsteps), and Myllyrinne told us, "I don't think there's anything technically stopping us from doing that. I think those will be business decisiions we'll make together with Microsoft. I think it would be an interesting experiment."

He also told us the next piece of DLC, dubbed "The Writer," is "not too far away" and that, in terms of gameplay, will feel more "surreal," like "Salvadore Dali does Alan Wake." When pushed on whether Remedy would take a break from Wake after the second DLC episode launches, he couldn't get into specifics. Myllyrinne said he had promised some folks that he wouldn't talk, but that Remedy would announce its next project "in a few months."

And more from Remedy Entertainment.

Outside of the knowledge that a second episode of DLC for Alan Wake -- titled "The Writer" -- will be coming sometime this fall and that it will cost 560 MS Points ($7), little else is known about the developer's plans for the future of the series. Though head of franchise development Oskari Häkkinen didn't get too specific, he told Eurogamer that the second DLC may not necessarily be the last we see of Mr. Wake on Xbox Live Marketplace. "I can't confirm whether this is going to be the last one or not. There are some things in the pipeline that we're looking at, and we're balancing out how we will move on with this," Häkkinen said.

In terms of "The Writer," though, Remedy ... writer Mikko Rautalahti added that gameplay will skew towards the type found in the first DLC ("The Signal"), while level design errs more on the side of fantasy than the first. "You will be seeing a lot more weird stuff. And we've learned quite a bit from making 'The Signal,' and we'll be applying that to 'The Writer' quite a bit," he said.

Both Häkkinen and Rautalahti remained relatively tight-lipped on the subject of an Alan Wake sequel, with Häkkinen only allowing, "I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue with Microsoft with a full-blown sequel for Alan Wake. We definitely want to do it. We have great ideas for it. I can see Mikko here twiddling his thumbs with his ideas for Alan Wake 2. There's certainly a want, and that want is I believe from both sides." He did, however, add, "Right now I can't confirm anything." Given our feelings on the game (and the first DLC), we've got all our fingers and toes crossed for more.

Listen, America. We know our relationship has been strained these past few weeks. It's just that ... well, you didn't buy Alan Wake very much, did you? If you want us to forgive you, you might want to spring for GoGamer's $30 sale on the literary thriller.

#xbox360 Shadow-possessed people are not the only unrealistic elements of celebrated Xbox 360 game Alan Wake. More »

So, you bought Alan Wake at launch, and proceeded to redeem the DLC token code immediately -- because, with no warning on the card, why wouldn't you? Now "The Signal" DLC is out, and you can't download your free copy, and life is terrible. Or is it?

Remedy announced via Twitter that help is on the way for those of you stumbling through a living nightmare of inaccessible post-game content. "If you've redeemed your code prior to release Microsoft will be sending out new codes to you via your email on XBL," the developer said. We're checking with Microsoft to find out exactly when those emails will go out.

In the meantime, catch a new trailer for the DLC after the break. Or don't, if you have yet to finish Alan Wake and fear spoilers.

#review Psychological thriller Alan Wake hit the Xbox 360 a few months back delivering a taut, deftly-written experience that straddled the line between television and video game. More »

Alan Wake's mysteries still linger, months after a pitch-perfect conclusion. Unlike most downloadable add-ons introduced after the fact, the first of two new episodes, "The Signal," comes after the fiction and wisely targets fans who wouldn't care much for standard DLC fare like "Additional killing grounds!" or "Deadlier explosive rounds!" If you just wanted to share a few more words with the imperiled author (and get 250 Gamerscore out of it), here's your chance.

Well, provided you can find him. The man's having trouble finding himself in the town of Bright Falls, which grows even more unstable and incoherent with every step he takes. Once again it's unclear where the world ends and the writer begins, and the developers at Remedy don't waste time before they start shoving reality and fiction into the same space. Their tinkering leads to an amusing spin on the original game's cardboard cutout gag, and more interestingly creates a few challenging scenarios that differ from those in the main game. I think I would have remembered a demolition derby.