Why did Alan Wake 2 take 13 years to make? "It would not have been possible in previous generations"

Alan Wake 2 is finally out, can you believe it? It’s got it all; amazing style, some of the best graphics you’ve ever seen, and an interesting story, to boot. Like the original, Alan Wake 2 stands out from the pack – distinct from most of what else is out there at the moment. But after the success of the original – and its easy ascent to ‘cult’ status – why did a sequel take so long to make?

“We were planning on going straight to a sequel after the first game,” Sam Lake, creative director at Remedy Entertainment, tells me in an interview. “We even had some ideas on what Alan Wake 3 could be! But the industry moves like waves, and the focus shifted from a publisher perspective,” Lake states. “Getting funding wasn’t possible, as there was no interest in continuing [Alan Wake] and doing a single player experience.”

The video game industry, shortly after the release of Alan Wake, was one where multiplayer was king. EA famously stated that single player games were dead, the same year Alan Wake launched. Legendary game developer Mark Cerny stated at a GDC talk in 2011 that single player games would be gone in three years, and this opinion didn’t vanish overnight. As the years went by, studios maintained that the economics of traditional single player releases were complicated. The potential profits of multiplayer experiences (and early micro-transaction focused content) were too seductive.