The first gameplay trailer for Alan Wake II has been released, continuing the story of the eponymous character from the original, released 13 years ago.
If you've played any of the games from Remedy, you'll find that Alan Wake is probably the most important, because he is considered by the developers to be the in-game author of all of their stories, such as the Max Payne storyline. Thus, the "Remedy-verse" is interconnected.
For example, in the recent trailers, there is an FBI agent called Alex Casey, who Alan Wake based Max Payne upon, without realizing it. It is speculated that Alex Casey was willed into existence by Alan Wake's authorship of Max Payne. The character model for Max/Alex is Remedy's Creative Director, Sam Lake, who is responsible for the unique writing in their games. (In the very beginning of this trailer, Sam is the guy on the right.)
For the sequel, there are two parallel playable storylines, told from the perspective of new character Saga Anderson, who is featured in the gameplay trailer, and of course, Alan Wake himself, who is apparently unlocked after the prologue. The player can then choose which character to play, and jump between the two, at least according to my current understanding. I think Remedy has chosen to exclude most of the footage of Alan himself out of the trailers on purpose, to keep that part of the story a mystery to be discovered by the player.
Anyone else enjoy Remedy's games? Max Payne 1/2, Alan Wake, and Control are some of my all time favorite games.
