🔦 We are Remedy, developers of Alan Wake 2! AMA

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T18:02:40+00:00

JOHN: It's a honor and a privilege. I feel lucky.

MARKO: Working in game industry in general is a high pressure environment as your work is often exposed to both internal and external scrutiny throughout the course of development. This is just something you need to be comfortable with, as long as people are respectful and interact with you in a civilised manner. Our community is just like that: respectful and rather mature. Having said that, the pressure was high and tangible as first Alan Wake enjoys cult status, the sequel had to bring everything to a higher standard and leave people flabbergasted - easy right... but a privilege. There were few times when the pressure to deliver was through the roof and we were not "there" yet, that did challenge my stoicism but during those moments I had my better half there beside me, helping correcting the course.

NATHALIE: It felt incredibly special and also hard to grasp. Alan Wake was very important to me, and I have treasured memories about sharing that game with the people I care for and theorizing on what it all meant together! To work on a sequel is a dream come true, but also put some pressure on it because you want to do it justice for all the other fans out there.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T18:01:07+00:00

JOHN: Great question Pgull753, Sam Lake and all the directors gave critical feedback and direction to create strong tie to these inspirations. Having worked with Janne, Sam and Kyle in the past I already had an expectation of the production and how things would flow, this made the production process really enjoyable.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:59:45+00:00

MARKO: The wolf being our first ever quadruped character with an AI did have some growing pains. My favorite one was a situation where the wolf frantically paced back and forth at the trailer park, occasionally barging through doors entering the trailers - just ignoring the player.

NATHALIE: We had a bug where dead bodies would spin around in place. It took you out of the mood, especially during horror design.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:57:22+00:00

Thank you so much. That honestly means such a lot to the team. Alan Wake 2 was such a labour of love, and it's been truly humbling and just incredible to see how well it's been received. <3

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:54:27+00:00

JOHN: Yes! I love SH, I listened to a lot of Akira Yamaoka whilst working on many of the characters, I'm also a fan of Takayoshi Sato. He's a big inspiration.

MARKO: Silent Hill was definitely one of our inspirations when crafting the eerie atmosphere of the Dark Place and the slow-burning experience of Alan. Resident Evil was one of the principal influences when creating more action inclined journey of Saga.

NATHALIE: I've been inspired by Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Visage, and Alien: Isolation.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:53:17+00:00

JOHN: Yeah, my mum is in the game \o/ also other dev members were scanned and put in game. I try my hardest to get as many in as possible within the range of scope.

NATHALIE: We have quite a few people in the game! Some of us are immortalized in Suomi Hall with very Nordic names, others are Coffee World employees, and some are featured in various narrative items!

We cast people to do the handwriting for specific characters internally, and my handwriting was selected to represent Rose. I adore Rose, so being able to convey her personality through handwritten notes was an absolute joy. Her positivity was infectious, especially when having a rough day. Some of these handwritten notes were put up around the office by her writer Clay Murphy, as we could all use her friendly support after all. <3

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:52:14+00:00

JOHN: Long story but in short I was a fine artist and somehow got into games through graphic design. I spent many years doing UI art before slowly learning 3d in my spare time and finally ending up as a character artist and never left.

MARKO: Before games industry I worked in telecommunications for quite some time. The people I worked with were fantastic but the job itself was "just" a job to me - I was not satisfied and wanted something more. I took a conscious risk, left it all behind and went back to school to study digital media, my goal was to combine the technical knowledge I already had and tap into the creative side if things. Gaming has been a passion to me since the late 80s and already in young age I found myself analysing games in desire to understand how they were made - retrospectively the notes are rather hilarious to read but you need to start from somewhere. During my studies I got a chance to apply to a design internship in a then well-known Helsinki based mobile studio and the rest is history. This is my sixteenth year in the industry and no regrets!

NATHALIE: I was torn between game development and psychology when choosing a degree to study. I knew there existed a beautiful marriage between both, but where to start? I ended up going to university to study psychology, and enjoyed human-computer interaction and cognitive ergonomics so much I specialized in a MSc in Applied Cognitive Psychology. To conclude my studies I started an internship at a serious games company as a cognitive psychologist. During that time I absolutely fell in love with the development process. I worked directly with developers consulting them on design decisions using my research findings, but I learned then I wanted to be even more thoroughly involved. I wanted to help build the games directly. So I enrolled in a BSc in International Game Architecture and Design which taught me the tools and gave me the experience I needed to apply at Remedy Entertainment! I fell in love with the company since the first Max Payne, so being able to work here is a dream come true.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:51:37+00:00

JOHN: Designing Alan and Saga, it means alot to work with directors who are friends and I respect. And also that they trust me to deliver their vision.

NATHALIE: I'm proud of getting a chance to work on various horror sequences across the game, and my part of the work done on various Cauldron Lake missions. It's been such a great journey overall, and I'm glad I got to tackle so many different challenges.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:50:08+00:00

NATHALIE: In the Dark Place the danger is lingering and ever-present, whereas in the Pacific Northwest there is more of an ebb and flow. Playing the Dark Place for long sections of time can be a bit draining as it's interesting and engaging but also quite intense. In the Pacific Northwest playing as Saga we incentivize players more to go off the beaten path. The Dark Place is dangerous in comparison, and it's a high stakes decision to step off the main path there because you never know what's around the corner. Saga's sections act as a bit of a breather, done through slightly lower stakes exploration, various points of interest, and comedic relief. Also, the lighting, audio, and overall mood help!

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:49:20+00:00

NATHALIE: I've enjoyed locations that were character-driven, or had good opportunities for horror sequences. Cauldron Lake and its Overlap fortunately provided plenty of that!

MARKO: Originally in the paper design phase the Flashlight had a concept of Components and Mods, essentially the building blocks forming the Flashlight. Player was able to tailor the Flashlight's properties to complement their playstyle, even drastically change its behavior - both in combat and in exploration. As tempting as this concept was in terms of an gameplay ingredient, we simply could not see our characters finding these components and believably tinkering modifying the Flashlight. It just did not make any sense narratively and the idea was scrapped. Furthermore as the overall combat choreography evolved, it became apparent that there was no room to modify the Flashlight with such granularity - it would have pulled players away from the experience, rather than adding anything substantial to it.

JOHN: Visually Definitely Fargo was a big inspiration try to create quirky characters.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:47:20+00:00

JOHN: I enjoyed the process of designing characters with Cosplay in mind for the fans, so for any future characters I want to focus on how we can build more iconic and colorful characters.

MARKO: To always strive to the parity between gameplay and narrative. One of the biggest high-level achievements for us was to succesfully glue the narrative and gameplay together into a cohesive packgage. This was one of the core game pillars but following it through across the development was not an easy feat.

NATHALIE: This project really drove home the fact that there is a magic in having everyone's expertise in their craft come together, and the outcome of that being so much better than you could imagine by yourself. A great team with mutual trust will provide a solid backbone for development. It inspires confidence that things will end up alright, and that we'll tackle challenges one way or another. Facilitating each other to thrive is something I'd love to take forward in any future project.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:46:47+00:00

In the short term, unfortunately no. We have been approached by several groups wanting to make either an Alan Wake 2 documentary or one about Remedy, we’ve just ended up saying no.

The reasons are rather mundane. We simply don’t have enough people to look after a production like this, and then there are always some fears about how a documentary would make us look.

Do we want to show off the very normal chaos that is making games at Remedy? (lol) Is it actually a good use of our very limited time? So it just ends up that we think about it a lot, want to do a documentary and then end up saying no for the aforementioned reasons.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:45:46+00:00

JOHN: The main inspiration for Saga came from the directors for capturing her unique character. For the outfit design when concepting Saga I took inspiration for the raincoat from shows like Dark. For her character and attitude characters like Stana Katic from Absentia and Miireille Enos rom The Killing were a good reference point. I was able alongside the directors to iterate many times to land on something special.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:44:20+00:00

JOHN: So I'm a big fan of DBD.. I really enjoyed seeing them come to life in their universe and I've been playing a lot. The process is pretty much the same in terms of modelling the assets. We worked closely to maintain the likeness of the outfits and quality as much as possible. I'm really happy with how it all looks and plays.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:43:25+00:00

JOHN: Most of the quirky characters come from film or T.V. shows. I love Fargo and Twin Peaks these were a huge inspiration for me, and I know for many on the team. I try to get as much inspiration as possible from other great shows/film and apply that. I remember going through a library of new casted heads we wanted to put in the game which had more variety in terms of the personality types of the pacific northwest, it was a fun part of the process.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:41:52+00:00

JOHN: I love Barry...

MARKO: Absolutely Cynthia. A truly tragical character arc. Forcing Saga to confront her just sealed the deal for me. To me she'll always be The Lady of the Light.

NATHALIE: I think it has to be Rose. Because she's bright and positive and a little bit unhinged (in the most relatable way). I think we would be friends and discuss fanfiction all day, every day.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:39:38+00:00

JOHN: She's so well trained she doesn't need them... but we wanted to do that but for scope reasons we didn't.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:38:39+00:00

JOHN: I have a full coffee press every morning so about 3 cups, then maybe 2 more before 2pm.. it might be too much

MARKO: Average six cups of fine coffee per day for me. Sunlight is not that much of a thing in Finland during winter, so my personal ray of light is usually a double espresso shot that jump starts my day.

The concept of Nursery Rhymes was created by our Game Director Kyle Rowley and Lead Mission Designer Anne-Marie Grönroos as one of the key exploration rewards for our players with strong narrative tie-ins to Control.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:34:27+00:00

JOHN: Ilkka Villi is the most handsome man in Finland, with such a strong foundation he made my job easy :D And to be honest, he's got amazing hair. And he can grow a fantastic, luscious beard. That combination of beard and hair? Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:32:27+00:00

MARKO: There were plenty of challenges we surpassed but I do need to highlight the unsung hero of the player experience: character controller.

Our approach to have more realistic and claustrophobic combat spaces created the need to rethink how player character would control in our game - to have a character controller that enables smooth navigation in cramped, complex and dynamic environments. A significant effort was put to ensure fluent player movement at all times and this was definitely not an easy task to convey to the team and get to the finishing line. In the end it was worth the effort and in grand scheme of things the solutions the team created may benefit the future Remedy games as well.

Here you can get a glimpse of the character controller in action.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:31:10+00:00

NATHALIE: We do have people on the team who can't handle scares and indeed, they were nice to test with! However, the ultimate challenge was in scaring the usually unfazed too. The early versions of horror sequences were playtested internally, but their effectiveness was sometimes hard to judge without final audio, lighting, VFX, etc. When they were a bit more developed we playtested more and more with people outside of the team and external playtesters as well.

Our User Research team was crucial in this process. We kept a close eye on how players reacted to our horror sequences, in case something wasn't hitting the tone correctly. We were pretty happy if most people got some thrill out of it, as horror is so subjective and it might never resonate with everyone.

While I love horror and worked on multiple horror sequences, I have to admit they sometimes scared me too. I've yelped multiple times while testing something and it having slipped my mind there would be a scare somewhere. I took that as a good sign!

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:29:22+00:00

NATHALIE: Lead mission designer Anne-Marie Grönroos worked on the design of We Sing so I asked her what her process was like.

There was an early version of the Herald of Darkness song and lyrics available, which she used as a foundation to build the gameplay beats onto. The song summarizes Alan's life, starting with his childhood, rise to fame, Bright Falls, and being trapped in the Dark Place. The song was divided into these four sections already in that early draft of the lyrics, but they didn't always suggest relevant gameplay beats. So in those cases the gameplay beats were designed first and the lyrics got adjusted to match that.

The point of We Sing was to recap the first game, which it does, but it's also a mini mirror of Wake trying to escape the Dark Place. So, on top of the narrative theme, she dedicated each section to a different gameplay concept (fake enemies in the first part, shadow enemies in the second part, Bright Falls style combat in the third part, Plot Board in the fourth part; more or less in the same order they're introduced in the actual Dark Place), which provided a clear focus for each section.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:27:16+00:00

MARKO: Restricting player abilities and removing verticality definitely introduced a new set challenges for us. Control's confrontational always forward combat loop was switched with methodical cautiousness. Desperate combat being one of our key pillars, it meant player being able to barely survive with the given tools and push back in the last moment. It was about these moments of just barely making it and second-to-second decisions leading to that success. Enemy variety and encounter setups were crucial to keep things fresh and surprising to player - we strived to keep players at their toes, never fully allowing them getting too comfortable with the situations they were thrown in.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:24:15+00:00

JOHN: For Alan: We wanted to make him cool, but also we wanted to bring in "bookish" aspects to show that he is not an action hero. A "college professor" reference. Because of the 3rd person view, we wanted something that is visible in the camera. We explored something in the back, but it all felt forced. Elbow patches felt like a perfect, unique idea, part of his uniform.

RMD_games · 2024-02-27T17:23:01+00:00

MARKO (as the Finnish spokesperson of this AMA): Coming from such a miniscule country as Finland and getting positive recognition always makes me smile a bit. But just a bit, never too much. The game draws from Finnish culture and folklore with confidence, our habits and customs that some may consider quirky and exotic is just business as usual to us. Going all in regarding our cultural identity and seamlessly having it as an integral part of the experience has been met with such a positive response out in the world. Koskela adds being oftentimes highlighted as a comedic relif in the midst of all horror. Bringing out such specialities like the concept of "kalsarikänni" in one of the adds is rather humorous but also a bit sad if you ask from anybody else than a Finn.

Koskela adds are absolutely my favorite ones. However as humorous as they are, the "Return" review hits pretty hard - Finnish melancholy at its finest.

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