Alan Wake's Interview

Alan Wake's interview in Spanish

There are many inspirations in Alan Wake, from general aspects to small details. Even we think we have detected the similarity between the picture/appearance of Thomas Zane and the one that appears in the film The Myst, in the beginning. How do you people work going around all these influences without falling into the imitation?

Mikko Rautalahti: Well, I haven?t seen the Mist, so I don?t know how similar they are, but I do know this: there are very, very few original ideas. But that?s okay, because I think ideas are cheap and plentiful. It?s very rarely that something hinges on whether you can get a good idea; more often than not, the tricky part is actually executing that idea successfully. If the way you approach it is cool and clever, it doesn?t really matter whether someone has done a similar thing before. That?s why we still have very good new FPS games coming out at a fairly regular pace, even though the idea of running around in a 3D environment in a first-person view and shooting at things is anything but original.

But you do need to be careful and critical of your own work, constantly evaluate it to see whether what you?re doing is a homage - or just a cheap imitation. There?s a difference between basing your work on the same idea and just copying what somebody else did, and it?s not that hard to know which one you?re doing if you just want to see it.

We know it's a tricky issue, even you?ve regret of that announcement: the open world. This was a great debate in our newsroom. On the one hand, we agree that having an open world makes to loose rythm and dynamism in the game, but, on the other, we believe it is appropiate to understand the complexity of the people and the town, giving life to the inhabitants of Bright Falls, showing their daily tasks and empathize more with Alan Wake. Can you throw some thoughts in the air about all this?

Mikko Rautalahti: The decision to get away from the open world wasn?t one that was made lightly, and we stand by it - but it?s a fair question.

I don?t think that getting deeper into the mindset of the town and its inhabitants really is very closely connected to whether the game has an open world or not. I would argue that from playing the game, people get a pretty good idea of what kind of a place Bright Falls is and what kind of people live there. I?m not saying we couldn?t do more on that front, but even if the game was open world, I don?t really think that would change things all that much by itself. If I think about the open world games I?ve played during the past year or so, I don?t think any of them offered a whole lot in the way of getting to know the rhythm of town life or the individuals who inhabited these places. Many of them were extremely good games, but that just wasn?t a thing they did.
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