Alan Wake 2's most memorable chapter was almost cut out
Alan Wake 2’s most memorable – and surprising – chapter was almost cut.
That’s according to the critically acclaimed horror game’s creator Sam Lake and director, Kyle Rowley.
This story contains spoilers for Alan Wake 2, so please only read on if you’ve completed the game or are happy to be spoiled.
“It was really, really hard for a number of reasons to have a musical in this,” Lake explained on the Friends Per Second podcast (thanks, GameSpot). “And there were many productions meetings [where people insisted]” ‘Come on, we need to cut this’.
“I was like: ‘Absolutely not. We are cutting it’.”
Lake says that it was challenging for some members of the team to envisage how Remedy’s signature blend of cinematics and live-action footage could come together in this particular sequence, especially with the musical number thrown in.
“When you say to someone, ‘We’re gonna put a musical in a survival-horror game’, the question comes to – ‘Well, how? What’s the gameplay loop there?'” Rowley added.
Lake credits Poets of the Fall, the real-life Finnish rock band behind the fictional Old Gods of Asgard, as helping Matthew Poretta (Alan Wake) and Warlin Door (David Harewood) get to grips with the performance, as well as noting that Poretta’s musical talent helped “pushed the idea forward”.
