Kyle Rowley, the Game Director on Alan Wake 2, has revealed during a chat with Games Radar that he feels the team slightly overdid the jump scares in the critically acclaimed survival horror title.
Reflecting on Alan Wake 2 as it celebrates its first anniversary, Rowley discussed the process of balancing jump scares in the game so they wouldn’t come across cheap. Upon reflection, he admitted that the team maybe indulged a bit too much in this department.
It’s difficult. I feel like we kind of overdid it a little bit looking back. Whenever a new foe is on the prowl, you could be sure they’d pop up to say hello with a horror sting. Thematically, story-wise, they’re meant to be like a psychological attack on the character who’s receiving them. Especially in the base game, you know, where you’re getting introduced to Overlap Guardians, whether that’s Nightingale or Cynthia, they’re meant to be this kind of mental assault.
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We do use them just for technical reasons as well, from a mission flow and level design and gameplay design perspective. We had these two reasons, and they kind of were serving slightly different purposes. But for a player, it came across basically as a jump scare no matter how we utilized it, whether it was through this story narrative reason or for gameplay reasons.
Alan Wake 2 was released in October 2023 for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S. As part of the first anniversary celebrations, Remedy is releasing a free update packed with new features including extra DualSense functionality, and has also confirmed how the game will take advantage of PS5 Pro.
[Source – Games Radar]