Sam Lake, the Creative Director of Alan Wake 2, has revealed that he wrote a live-action film script for the game before production began. This is a significant departure from the way that video games are typically developed, as scripts are often written in parallel with gameplay development, or even after it has begun.
Lake’s decision to write a full script for Alan Wake 2 upfront was motivated by his desire to have more control over the creative process. If he could make sure the overall story and beats were done, he could make sure everyone worked with that. In an interview with AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook, Lake said:
“I really wanted to have the critical screenplay before we kind of roll into production. I wrote the story with with with Tyler Burton Smith who was working with us on Quantum Break and now is working on on TV and film mostly. and then wrote the screenplay with with Clay Murphy who is at remedy, a writer so.”
– Sam Lake
It’s an interesting way to develop a game, especially with all of the live-action scenes. We don’t normally see games do that, but I personally hate it. I get that it’s easier to make a game by filming live-action scenes, but I don’t like seeing the changes in the visual quality from live-action to in-game scenes. In my lowly opinion, it was a mistake and they should have stuck to computer animation.
Everyone has their own opinion on matters like this, so you may disagree. That’s fine, and it’s super okay to like how everything played out. Aside from making a live-action script, Lake also revealed that he is “very involved in the making of Music more than ever before” in Alan Wake 2. This suggests that he may have also written some of the game’s music, or at least collaborated closely with the music composers.
We’ve seen movie directors do this, like Coco, where Adrian Molina wrote songs and the script. It will be interesting to see how all of this goes.
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