Alan Wake not open world – here’s why

For a little while, now, it’s been established that Remedy’s upcoming action-adventure thriller, Alan Wake, is no longer an open world title as it was originally planned. Last week, I got to ask writer Sam Lake what happened to that idea.

Making Alan Wake an open world title would’ve essentially disturbed the strong, story-based structure in the game, Lake says. “Certainly, there were prototypes we tested and weren’t happy with and didn’t end up as part of what Alan Wake is – for example, we even had sandbox elements in there. With them, we were constantly running into situations where we had to make big compromises with out thriller pacing and storytelling.”

For a studio that’s built its reputation on storytelling, that didn’t make sense for Lake. “That, at the end of the day, was not worth it. We wanted to do a story-driven game – that’s what we feel Remedy is supposed to be.”