Speaking to Finnish magazine Peelaj, Remedy, have revealed that their upcoming creepy, story-driven horror action game, Alan Wake, will not be as ‘open-world,’ or provide as much of an in-depth sandbox gameplay experience, as previously believed.

The developer said of the decision to cut such elements out of the game: “It’s not a good mixture with storytelling. For it we would have been forced to make such compromises in the game that we at Remedy don’t want to. The most important thing for us is a compelling story and so we decided to go in that direction”

A member of Remedy’s team also posted on the game’s official forums to address the growing concerns that fans have regarding the game. From the post:

“It’s always tough to change big things in a game. Max Payne [developed by Remedy] was originally to have a multiplayer, but we dropped it. It certainly made some people sad, but the game was better because of the hard decision.”

The post then went on to relate how difficult it is to communicate changes in a game’s design to the fans and general public in a short amount of time, and how “it’s natural that new game IPs evolve over time. To avoid any kind of design communication changes, we would need to start talking about them only 6-12 months before release.”

“This increases the publisher side risk tremendously,” continued the post, “and raising any awareness for a new brand in a short time is difficult.

“It’s different with sequels, people will know what they’ll get the minute you start talking about a new Lara Croft or Doom.”

Alan Wake is still set to be quite a thrilling experience when it releases on Xbox 360 in the Spring of next year, with a haunting and mysterious story and third-person horror action element, wrapped up in a creepy visual aesthetic dripping with style.

Source: incgamers