The February 2012 edition of XBOX World presented Alan Wake fans with a unique and exciting glimpse into Remedy's upcoming arcade action game, Alan Wake's American Nightmare. With an eight-page feature bursting with new content and reveals, we delved into some of the things we learnt from the article. The issue is also the game's debut magazine cover appearance and is certain to be a collector's item in years to come.
This is some of what we learned from the recent piece.
Comparison to Alan Wake
- The upcoming game is going to be more about action compared to its predecessor.
- When developing the game, the team were inspired by From Dusk 'Til Dawn, urban legends, B movie classics and The Twilight Zone.
- American Nightmare will acts as a bridge between Alan Wake 1 and a potential sequel.
- Players can join the experience even if they haven't played the original Alan Wake title.
- American Nightmare has been compared to episodes four and five from the first game, starting from the Old Gods of Asgard Stage fight.
- The story pace has increased compared to the original titles.
Development
- The game was a result of Remedy experimenting with several techniques.
Introduction
- Early in Wake's career, he wrote several episodes of Night Springs. This story will be based on one of those episodes.
- The story will be told across nine episodes.
- We can explore a story mode in the game.
- We pick up the story, two years after the events of the original game. Wake's fans created several legends about what has happened. The legend goes that Wake travelled into the woods, but emerged as Mr Scratch, now a serial killer has been made real by the Dark Presence.
- We can collect new manuscript pages, TVs and radios, giving the player additional backstory to the game.
- Poets of the Fall are back as the Old Gods of Asgard! In the game, the band are on a reunion tour with Barry Wheeler as their agent.
- There will be new licensed music tracks which will appear throughout the episode.
New Additions
- American Nightmare will take place in Night Springs, Arizona.
- The story will be told by the Night Springs narrator rather than Alan.
- Remedy has created an open world for the arcade game, but not at the expense of the story. The narrative remains a top priority.
- There is also an arcade "Fight 'Til Dawn" horde mode, which takes the players to survive until sunrise. Alan will be armed with ammo, a flashlight, flares and flashbangs.
- The horde mode will also take the protagonist across a number of maps, including a graveyard (where nothing can possibly go wrong), a trailer park and a Goldrush ghost town.
- Mr Scratch will taunt Wake in a series of recorded messages, where he does "horrifying deeds".
- The game is significantly bigger than any previous episode in the original games or the DLC.
- The game will take place over three locations, and features an open-world setup.
- Several locations have been revealed. Wake will visit a gas station, a mountain-top observatory, an old drive-in theatre and a motel in the desert.
- The mountain-top observatory will reveal a secret message in the stars.
- There are new weapons, new environments, new enemies and a new colour palette.
- The Splitter is a new enemy which divides into two Taken if the flashlight beam hits them.
- The Birdman is another new enemy which can turn into a flock of birds when the player tries to burn away the darkness with light. When preparing an attack, the enemy will turn back into a human.
- A new weapon is a crossbow which can pierce the darkness that protects them. This is likely to be the most effective tool against the Splitter.
- Other new weapons include an Uzi, a military-grade rifle, and a nailgun.
- American Nightmare has been described as two-thirds action and one-third story.
