The Writer Returns

When Alan Wake released in 2010, it ended on a pretty big cliffhanger, clearly signaling that the team at Remedy had more planned for the character. With sales not quite meeting expectations though, despite a strong critical reception, the sequel never came together. Still, in the last decade and change Alan Wake never quite vanished either. A smaller scale spin-off released in 2012. Development of a TV series based on the character has been ongoing for some time. Remedy’s title Control, released in 2019, mentions Alan Wake repeatedly and eventually released a DLC chapter tying the two even more strongly together. A remaster of the original game even hit modern systems this year. After all of these years working to keep the series alive, it must be gratifying for Remedy to have announced Alan Wake 2 last night during The Game Awards.

Promising that this will be their first true survival horror title, Alan Wake 2 promises to take their titular writer to some very dark places. While the reveal trailer released last night is brief and cinematic, it seems to suggest you’ll have a wider variety of environments this time around. An excellent PlayStation Blog post however explains how the game came to exist. Alan Wake 2 is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC sometime in 2023. The developers have promised we’ll see more sometime next year. Check out the trailer below.