Prerelease:Alan Wake 2 (Windows)

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Alan Wake 2 (Windows).

Pitch Prototype

In 2015, Remedy and Polygon released a 13-minute recording of an Alan Wake 2 pitch demo. The demo was created shortly after the first game's release in 2010, and was pitched to Microsoft. Sadly, the pitch was rejected, and Remedy partnered up with Microsoft to work on Quantum Break instead.

The only thing the prototype and released title have in common is the name of the game. The setting, gameplay style and storyline have all been changed in the final product.

• 

  Night Springs, Arizona

• 

  Remains of a burned lodge

• 

  Flooded streets of an abandoned town

• 

  A reality tear

• 

  Ditto

While some ideas, such as reality tears, survived to the final game, the form they take is quite different. At this point Alan was intended to explore a vast Dark Place taking various different forms, such as the Arizona desert town Night Springs, and flooded streets of a northwestern small town. The desert managed to make its way into the downloadable kinda-sorta sequel, Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

• 
• 
• 

Some Taken concepts also ended up unused. The birdman was again seen in American Nightmare, while the bear boss was left entirely on the cutting room floor.

"Return" teaser in Quantum Break

To do: This

In 2016, Remedy managed to sneak in a teaser of Alan Wake 2 as a trailer seen on one of the in-game TVs. The trailer is entirely live-action, as no version of the game was in development at the time, but it shows many of the story ideas of the final game set in stone! The FBI agents Alex Casey and Saga Anderson (who remains unnamed in the teaser) are in place, and so are Alan's and Scratch's outfits.

Proof of Concept

As a lead up to Alan Wake II's release in September 2023, Remedy released a screenshot of the game's proof of concept demo from around 2020. The screencap shows an early version of Alan's Dark Place, the streets of New York. At this point the level is still an entirely unlit graybox stage. Alan is wearing his outfit from the first game, with his model possibly being a reused placeholder of his model from the first game.

(Source: Remedy Entertainment on X)

Announcement trailer

To do: Also this