This is what happens when you’ve worked on a game for five years.
And it’s not that the game wasn’t good or anything of that nature, but all truths are parallel. Let’s take food for example, if I’m around lobster 24/7, then most likely my desire for it will fade overtime, whereas other people would kill for it.
So too, the developers of Alan Wake started to get bored of the game they created as time moved along.
The game’s lead writer, Sam Lake, sat down for an interview with OXM, (the latest issue’s on book stands across the US) and while there, he opened up to the magazine on many things. One of them included fighting boredom.
When asked how many revisions did they make to the game’s original story, and if they ever worried that the story’s core would be lost in the process, he said:
“We did worry about that. When you’ve worked on something for a very, very long time, there’s always the danger of getting bored with it. You become used to it, and where things once felt very exciting and original, you at some point start to doubt that and feel like, “well, we’ve seen this already, it’s not that exciting, we should think of something new.””
Lake said although they deviated at times, trying different things, all in an effort to make the game better, nothing felt quite as good as the original, something that really helped in reaffirming their confidence in the original plot. In the end, it all came together to deliver what’s available exclusively on the Xbox 360 now.
“But of course, that’s not true,” Lake continued, “because no one else has really seen what we’ve worked on. And at times you have to fight that feeling and trust your original vision.”
“Sure, along the way we tried out different things, but they never did feel better than the original high-level vision. They served their purpose, though, in that they made us trust the original vision again.”
Interesting stuff. The game’s been out since May, and according to NPD, haven’t been performing the way Remedy and Microsoft had hoped. As for a sequel, Remedy said they’re willing and able, but Redmond seems to be hesitating.
i really hope they do a sequel, its such a original unique game and theres so many things they could do with it!
theres really not one game out there like alan wake, so they would be stupid to let it go here!
I know, but it’s up to MS, though.
i dont think it is, if memory serves me remedy own the IP rights so its up to them if they do a sequel or not!
hope they do, its got so much potential!