While the DLC called Night Springs (as well as the photo mode) will be released today, the Finnish studio explained how they’re going to add everything to the content updates after the game’s release.

Gamesindustry caught up with Kyle Rowley (director of Alan Wake 2), Clay Murphy (lead writer), Nathalie Jankie (level designer) and Thomas Puha (communications director) ahead of the announcement at Summer Game Fest (SGF). The Night Springs DLC (which began development shortly after the game’s release) will see three characters from the Remedy universe take control of the in-game anthology series Night Springs. You will receive one episode per story.

“Marketing campaigns tend to be shorter these days, and it’s good to try and do things differently. So together with our publisher, Epic, we thought this time we’d announce the expansion just before release, so fans would have a short wait to get their hands on it. There’s always a debate about how much of the marketing budget should be saved for post-launch, but the thinking tends to be that, especially with a single-player game, the launch is the most important thing to get right, so that justifies the spend at launch,” says Puha. The release is timed around SGF because it’s a big platform to get the news out to a huge audience.

“We always wanted the idea of playing as multiple characters. In the original concept of the base game, we wanted to have more playable characters than we ended up with. Night Springs as a concept came about as we were figuring that out. We parked it, and then after we finished the game, we wrote some more awesome, crazy stuff. Working on a horror game for five years is like being stuck in The Dark Place with Alan – we wanted to do something more freeform. There was no “Is this too crazy?” during development. It was more like ‘Is this crazy enough? That was the mindset that went into it, and it was a nice change of pace,” says Rowley. “The writing process was very loose and fun – no rules, no boundaries. Just pure experimentation and trying to find the fun in each episode and push it as far as we could. We’re trying to have fun and make it weird, so not every idea comes from the writers, the process definitely involves the team,” Murphy added. Jankie says it was fun to see everyone jump in.

There’s always a challenge in how the team is distributed during development, but that changes with DLC. Remedy is working on several projects at once (like a sequel to Control, maybe two Max Payne remakes), and Puha talked about that as well: “It’s a constant challenge when you are working on multiple games at very different stages of production. We feel a lot better about it now than we did a few years ago. We’ve figured out how to do it, but there’s no denying that managing teams competing for developers and other resources is a huge challenge. That said, we are all very excited about the future roadmap for our games. We always planned to have a dedicated post-launch team for Alan Wake 2. It’s a small team, but everyone on it has worked on Alan Wake 2, the technology and tools are in place, and it’s easier to build the expansion than the main game.”

Control received two DLCs after its release, and a similar direction was taken with Alan Wake, which also received the American Nightmare spin-off in 2012, which was also set as a Night Springs episode: “American Nightmare was tonally very different from the original game. In the same vein, we are creating a slightly different experience. From a gameplay perspective, we’ve shifted it for each episode to match the tone. We wanted the gameplay to feel familiar, but in a slightly different stylization and context,” said Rowley.

Remedy is taking a bit of a gamble with the time and resources it is devoting to Night Springs for fans, as not everyone who bought the base game will buy it, but the Finnish studio was aware of that. “It is about having realistic expectations, market data and knowing who you are making the expansion for and what business purpose it serves. The response has been incredible. Alan Wake 2 was a very difficult game to ship. But we always had the plan that once we shipped it, there were other things that we wanted to talk about in addition to this expansion, the photo mode, and the second expansion that we’re working on. We’ve always taken that very long view with Remedy. It’s not like the first few months are focused on sales, it’s at least the next three years, that’s how we look at it. There are different things we’re doing that will hopefully keep the game out there. But it really resonated with people in an incredible way,” Puha explains.

Jankie says there’s something very motivating (and contagious in a good way) about the positive feedback Alan Wake 2 has received. She’s grateful for that because it makes the developers feel like they can do more of the same. Rowley says they are doing a lot of things to appeal to fans with the Night Springs DLC. They wanted to make sure they chose characters that would resonate with an audience familiar with the studio’s previous games, and even revisit them. Murphy added that it’s very nostalgic and inspiring for them when their fans connect with the games and then reflect on what some of the things in their games mean and what they’re doing in the future. And Jankie said that it was very motivating to read what the fans were talking about online and what they wanted to see in the accessories. They saw that they were on the right track.

Use light to survive in two realities corrupted by darkness. 🔦

Limited Run is proud to officially reveal our exclusive Alan Wake 2 Collector’s Edition. 6-week open pre-orders will launch tomorrow! Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/Riw3PN5vKq

— Limited Run Games (@LimitedRunGames) June 8, 2024

The Night Springs DLC for Alan Wake 2 is available today on the Epic Games Store for PlayStation 5, Xbox consoles, and PC. Limited Run Games has announced that the consoles will receive a physical collector’s edition that includes Alan Wake 2, Alan Wake Remastered, an art book, an enamel pin set, an Oceanview Hotel keychain, and a special box.

Source: Gamesindustry, Gematsu