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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

Sam Lake has been thinking about a sequel from the moment it was first completed.

Control is a game with obvious advantages and disadvantages, and word-of-mouth is polarized, but it is generally successful, bringing huge business returns and awards to Finnish game company Remedy Entertainment. Since its launch in 2019, the action game has attracted more than 10 million players. A wise business strategy should be to strike while the iron is hot and start the follow-up project immediately.

But at the time, instead of doing that, Remedy chose to do something riskier-to develop a sequel to the 2010 Xbox game Alan Wake. The revenue of the original "mind Killer" may not have met the expectations of Remedy or publisher Microsoft, but it attracted many die-hard fans and made Sam Lake, the creative director of Remedy, and many of his colleagues.

In some of Remedy's later games, including Control, "mind Killer" eggs appeared frequently, and the development team often talked about what the sequel would look like. Now, they finally got what they wanted.

No one wants to create "mind Killer 2" more than Lake. Before "mind Killer," Remedy's most famous game was "Max Payne." since then, players around the world have known Remedy and Rick himself-Lake contributed his face to Max Payne in the game, and he is the lead screenwriter of many Remedy games and is seen as the soul of Remedy.

After 20 years, from "Hero" to "mind Killer" to "Quantum Breaking" and "Control", Remedy's game has not changed much in essence, and still likes story-driven, so it's not surprising that "mind Killer" will have a sequel.

"everyone is full of passion for this project." "nonetheless, Remedy has grown into a larger company, with several core teams, working on different content, and a group dedicated to 'control,'" Mr. Lake said. "but personally, I've been lobbying around for the past 10 years to develop mind Killer 2."

Mind Killer 2 was officially announced at the Game Awards at the end of 2021. The story still revolves around the best-selling thriller novelist Alan Vick. Trapped in a parallel universe for 13 years, Vic began to write a horror story about FBI agent Saga Anderson in an attempt to escape.

Kyle Raleigh, game director of mind Killer 2, added: "We started working on the concept before Control was released, and after Control was completed, many members of the team transferred to the" Crossing Fire Line X "project team to develop a single-player campaign. After that, because the "control" team was still thinking about the future, and we were more advanced in the conceptual phase, we pulled all of them into our team. "

Rowley was the chief game designer in Quantum Breakdown and is now one of the directors of mind Killer 2. In 2019, Remedy took back the rights to the original mind Killer from Microsoft and got the chance to make mind Killer 2. The studio added "mind Killer" eggs to "Control" and later linked the two games in the 2020 expansion package "different World events." In October 2021, Remedy partnered with publisher Epic Games to launch "mind Killer: remake". The original remake version only enhanced and optimized the picture quality of the game, and there was no update to the play or plot, but this paved the way for a new "mind Killer" game.

"all this really excites me." "We want to do everything we can to expand the mind Killer, and over time, this desire becomes stronger and stronger," Lake said. after a long wait, all aspects of the conditions have been ripe, and finally it is the best time to make mind Killer 2 to try something special. "

In mind Killer 2, Remedy is not satisfied with adding new stories and modern games, but also introduces a large number of mystery solving elements and the new character Anderson. In the new game, players will play the familiar Vic and Anderson to unfold two different stories. But the biggest difference lies in the style. compared with the original works, the biggest change of "mind Killer 2" is "switching categories", which has become a survival horror game.

Players in "mind Killer 2" can operate two main characters, British actress Melanie Liebard for the new role Anderson dubbing style change is not "mind Killer" is a survival horror game? In fact, it has many of the features of survival horror games-scary atmosphere, nightmare stories, terrible shadow enemies, and settings such as health, limited ammunition, and so on. Lake admits that the original mind Killer told a horror story, but it did not provide players with a real survival horror experience.

"in the early stages of mind Killer 2, we carefully studied the survival horrors and found that they were never really horror games." Lake explained, "it suddenly made us realize, why not consider making a real survival horror game? after all, many elements of this category can better combine stories with play."

"first of all, we slowed down the game. In the mind Killer, players jog through the jungle and have to deal with hordes of enemies. From this point of view, it is an action game, but it has been criticized for its monotonous play. Players are always in a dark forest, repeatedly facing the same enemy. During the development of the sequel, we hope to provide players with richer ways to play, reduce battles, and make battles more in depth. In order to achieve these goals, we have added a lot of plot groundwork, providing players with more choices and resource management, as well as other play elements that can support the narrative. "

The story of "mind Killer" takes place in LiangFalls Town, and the game atmosphere is well molded, but the game is relatively monotonous. In the past six months, a large number of 3A horror games, such as the Callisto Agreement and a remade version of Dead Space and biochemical Evil 4, have been released one after another, which makes the survival terror market segment appear to be increasingly crowded. But Lake and Raleigh believe that mind Killer 2 still has the ability to stand out in a highly competitive environment.

"its tonality is completely different from biochemical crisis or Silent Hill." Raleigh pointed out, "We think the characteristic of 'mind Killer' is that the story takes place in an American town, there are a lot of weird characters in the game, and a unique sense of humor. Players may be nervous when playing a traditional survival horror game, but the rhythm of mind Killer 2 is more changeable, and you smile from time to time. Sometimes people get scared only after laughing, and if the game wants to be scary from beginning to end, it will make the player numb. "

Lake added: "We pay a lot of attention to character-centered narrative. This game has a strong psychological horror element, derived from the basic theme of" mind Killer ", that fiction can become reality …... what can you believe? what is the truth? this is an important starting point for us to shape our characters."

On the basis of the original horror, "mind Killer 2" plans to take a step forward (the picture shows a public demonstration). Remedy has previously shared some sources of inspiration for "mind Killer 2", such as the overall tone is very close to the crime mystery drama "True Detective." But from the perspective of horror works, we are loyal fans of film director Ali Esther, genetic doom and Midsummer Night shock. " "these movies are horror films, but rarely as scary as traditional scenes," Raleigh said. the sense of horror comes from the storyline, the characters and everything they experience, not just the dark corridor. this is important. we are trying to tell a horror story, not just create a horror game. "

"I've been studying the plot for months, thinking about what the game should look like, and I've had a lot of ideas in the process. Over time, the game framework has gone through several iterations and gradually formed." "nonetheless, when we first sat down to build the concept for mind Killer 2, we quickly reached a shared vision and idea," Lake recalls. "at Remedy, the process of creating games was always long and tortuous, with many changes, but the official version of mind Killer 2 was closer to our original vision than any of our previous games."

Fighting is similar to "control", mainly through guns

If you are familiar with the Remedy game, you can guess that the enemy's blood is very thick, it is not easy to kill in 2020, people suddenly have to work from home, resulting in Remedy in the development of "mind Killer 2" encountered a lot of challenges. "it's too hard." "I don't think anyone on this planet really understands what an emergency means and how it affects people's work and personal lives," Lake admits. "during that time, we wanted to exchange new ideas at any time, but we were unable to sit together and had to communicate through video conferencing or text messages, which slowed down a lot, and we spent more time pushing the project from concept to pre-production."

However, compared with the original "mind Killer", the development process of the sequel is still much smoother. The initial R & D cycle was nearly seven years, and at one point the Remedy team even had to "admit defeat", knock the whole project down and do it all over again. "by developing Quantum fragmentation and Control, we learned a lot, such as how to mobilize the player's initiative and make the game more open." "during the development of Control, we also built a lot of new technologies related to AI," Raleigh said. "We didn't start from scratch, but we laid a solid foundation for the development of mind Killer 2 through our experience."

If all goes well, Soul Killer 2, also released by Epic, will be released in October.

A "universe" in the long run, Remedy hopes to build its own connected universe around games such as "mind killer" and "control". This sounds impractical, after all, Remedy's game looks simple, but it is actually quite rich, and the way of telling stories is piecemeal and obscure. Many people may think that they need to get through all the games produced by Remedy in order to understand the story of "Remedy Universe".

"We are well aware of that." "as we said before, we need to make sure that every game is easy to use and provides a pleasant experience, no matter how they relate to the Remedy universe," Lake said.

"this is one of the main reasons why we created the new character Anderson. She doesn't know anything about the supernatural energy associated with Alan Vick, so she's a character who guides players into the game world. As a result, even if some new players know nothing about Remedy, they can play FBI agents and investigate ceremonial killings in a way they are very familiar with. Throughout the process, Anderson learned with the players. Through exploration, players will find content related to the Remedy universe-there is no need to do homework in advance. "

This article is compiled from: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/after-13-years-remedys-dream-of-alan-wake-2-is-real-and-its-really-going-for-it

Original title: "After 13 years, Remedy's dream of Alan Wake 2 is real-and it's really going for it"

Original author: Christopher Dring

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