Microsoft turned down Alan Wake 2 pitch with TV-style episodes for Quantum Break instead
"Control also started off as an Alan Wake 2 concept."
Alan Wake 2 arrives this October more than than 13 years after Remedy's original game, and after a number of false starts at getting the sequel made.
Much of developer Remedy's original pitch for the sequel eventually worked its way into Alan Wake's American Nightmare, the action-heavy 2012 standalone spinoff which, while not unanimously loved by critics, went on to be one of the cult hits of the old Xbox Live Arcade days.
Remedy has continued to work on ideas for a full sequel ever since, through the period where it released Quantum Break - the Xbox One exclusive that mixed time-bending action and shooting with live-action TV episodes - and then the fellow "Remedy connected universe" entry Control.
But as creative director Sam Lake explained to Eurogamer at Summer Games Fest earlier this month, both of those games started out as ideas for Alan Wake 2. At one point, Lake actually pitched a version of Alan Wake 2 that would have Quantum Break-style "live-action mini episodes", only for Microsoft to turn down this pitch as it felt linear single-player games were, in Lake's words, "are a thing of the past".
Despite that, Microsoft liked the idea of a video game with live-action sections - and so the unique idea for Quantum Break was born.
"So, we were creating a concept of Alan Wake 2, we were showing it to Microsoft - but other publishers as well at the time - and it was maybe slightly awkward timing as, you know, the industry shifts and changes along the way," Lake said.
"It was at the time where clearly there was feeling that linear single player games are a thing of the past. Well, single-player story obviously is huge these days, but at the time, it felt like nobody was really interested."
"And as a detail," he said, "in that pitch, I had the idea there would be live-action mini-episodes in-between the episodes of the game, and during that pitch at Microsoft, they were like, 'We are interested right now about this, but not really interested about going on with Alan Wake."
So, Lake explained, "that then evolved into Quantum Break. But between every game we have come back with a new version of what Alan Wake 2 could be, and we've had some discussions and here we are now."
Alan Wake 2 game director Kyle Rowley added that "Control also started off as an Alan Wake 2 concept", something which Lake confirmed as well.
Was there anything from those original concepts, from the pre-American Nightmare days, that made its way into the Alan Wake 2 we'll get in a few months' time? "Very little," Lake said in reply.
"Of course, it is the same character and it is the same settings - the Pacific Northwest and Dark Place - and plenty of lore elements that evolved out of that. But beyond that, what the game side of it was, or the actual plot of it was... this is a very different thing."
For Lake, that's still a positive. "I'm really happy we didn't get to make any of those," he said. "Because I do feel a lot more excited in many, many ways about what we have now been making."
Microsoft's decision to focus on the episodic part of Lake's pitch makes for especially interesting reading in the context of the company's infamous "TV, TV, TV" reveal of the Xbox One in 2013, and the perceived lack of compelling, single-player games for years afterwards.
Now, court documents from Microsoft's attempted $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard - which Microsoft has undergone in the hope of remedying that lack of releases in conparison to rival platform-holder Sony - reveal Microsoft has at least considered acquiring Remedy in the past.
The fact that Alan Wake 2 and the recent Alan Wake Remastered will launch on the Epic Games Store is listed as a "risk" in those documents.
That said, it's clear Microsoft has at least looked into the prospect of purchasing a large number of companies in recent years - including Sega and Destiny developer Bungie.
Meanwhile, Remedy also explained to Eurogamer why Alan Wake 2 will be digital only, and Sam Lake told the story of how Stephen King licensed the quote at the beginning of Alan Wake for just a dollar, all as part of our big Alan Wake 2 preview and interview.