Alan Wake
We questioned the creative director of Remedy on whether or not to resolve the various riddles the company incorporates into its games.
Alan Wake is full of secrets, just like the baffling TV series that served as its inspiration. Alan Wake 2 probably will be as well. After all, Quantum Break and Control, two of Remedy’s other games, are filled with mysteries, many of which remain unanswered. Try to solve these unanswered questions on their own. Sam Lake, the Remedy creative director, and I had a conversation about how the team approaches writing mysteries. I also asked him why, in his words, certain things are best left unexplained.
When you get one conclusive response, in my experience, the anxiety typically dissipates, Lake said. “And to me, there is rarely a single, unambiguous solution in both literature and real life. Although there are some clear-cut answers in Alan Wake, and the recent QR codes hidden in Alan Wake Remastered do provide details to answer some of the lingering questions fans have been discussing over the last 13 years, Lake acknowledged directions.
“I feel that there are solutions for those fans who truly really want to delve in[…] It seems to be about equilibrium, said Lake. “It’s about providing hints of answers but constantly posing sufficient questions.
Not just as a fan of Alan Wake, but also as a lover of the mystery-box subgenre, I find the question to be interesting. Things like Lost, Twin Peaks, Westworld, Cloverfield, and other mystery-filled series have developed a habit out of weekly cliffhangers and decades-long mysteries that send fans into a frenzy and force them onto fan sites, Discord servers, and subreddits where they laboriously theorise about what’s happening. Even though it’s a video game, Alan Wake is very much a part of that genre, adore it.
For those wishing for clarification in the case of Wake, it would be wise to keep in mind that the original game’s opening quotes from Stephen King discuss how readers naturally want cognitive closure but that the author shouldn’t give it in a horror narrative.
According to King, nightmares “exist outside of logic, frequently asks “Why?” yet there is never an answer and never should be. What remains with us the longest and that we ultimately remember is the unsolved mystery.
