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In This Edition
- The stress of making Alan Wake 2
- Balancing creativity and commercial
- Working with Annapurna Pictures
- Sam Lake’s famous coffee videos
- … Moomins?
Welcome back to The Game Business! This week, we interview Remedy’s Sam Lake following his Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developer Choice Awards. The writer and director discusses the pressure he put himself under while making Alan Wake 2, his famous coffee drinking videos, the prospect of making movies and why it’s important Remedy doesn’t follow the crowd.
Enjoy!
The last time I interviewed Sam Lake it was on stage in London back in October 2023.
Alan Wake 2 was days away from release, and the event was standing-room only, with hundreds of fans packed in to hear from the game’s amiable creator.
I met up with Lake and (Remedy’s communications director) Thomas Puha just before stepping on stage, and although they were their usual genial selves, I could tell something was off. “I take it you’re all finished with the game now?” I asked. There was a nervous glance. “Erm, no, not yet,” Lake admitted.
“I was very tired and stressed,” Lake says to me today. “Making games is a very complex thing and with Alan Wake 2… I really wanted to be hands-on. It's always teamwork. But I was writing, directing, also co-directing the live action parts. I wanted to be involved in making the music, especially the lyrics. I was acting a part in it, too. There was a lot.
“When this kind of a big production starts rolling, it's not built around one person's availability. So, if you want to do all of these different things, you need to be flexible, you need to stretch, and you need to be working like a crazy person to achieve it. I felt it was worth it but it was a lot. And there is always this struggle of… the creative vision, the production realities, the schedules, the budget and the scope. Towards the end I had been working a lot of nights and weekends for a long, long time.
“Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm really proud of what we achieved. But I had to do a sabbatical. I went away at the end of the project for half a year. I’m feeling much better now.”
Alan Wake 2 was a real critical darling. The horror sequel emerged as one of 2023’s highest rated video games, which is no mean feat when you consider it was the year that also saw the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo IV and Spider-Man 2. Its success cemented Remedy’s already strong reputation as one of the industry’s best game makers.
As a result, Lake now finds himself collecting lifetime achievement awards – this interview follows his win at the GDC Awards in March – and he is keynoting the Develop:Brighton conference in the July. Are we witnessing Lake’s farewell tour?
He laughs: “There is a slight feeling of… are you trying to tell me something? Am I done? Have I peaked? Are you telling me… “Okay, run along now”. But no, I still have a lot of passion and ideas.”
When Alan Wake 2 was announced I had two reactions to the news. As a fan, I was delighted. I loved the first game and had given up hope on a sequel. But as a business journalist I was worried. It was a sequel to a 14-year-old game that wasn’t exactly a smash hit in the first place. It was also a AAA horror game without the words ‘Resident Evil’ in the title. It was a risk, and I certainly don’t think Remedy would have got this game financed in 2025.
It took a while to deliver a profit, but Alan Wake 2 did find an audience. And it’s entirely right for Remedy, which makes AAA games not on AAA budgets, to be different in its approach and style. The studio’s games are always a bit weird, mixing in elements of poetry, live action film and, erm, dance.
But has Lake never been tempted to try his hand at something a bit more mainstream? A first-person military shooter, perhaps? Or an open world RPG?
“Well, we were planning a free-roaming open world game with the first Alan Wake,” he reminds us. “And we failed. We just couldn't make it work, so we went into more linear direction. We have been, on the design side, step-by-step taking a more modern way of building the game worlds. [2019’s] Control was a big step into that semi-open hub like structure.”
He adds: “I fully believe that being unique and being original, and doing some things that make you stand out, is vital from a competition perspective. There is a lot of noise out there and a lot of great games. Making the same kind-of a game [as other companies] and maybe not having as much resources as the big platform-owned studios… we need to find a way to stand out.”
Want to hear Sam Lake speak at Develop:Brighton this July? The Game Business readers can get 10% off tickets with the code: QXFYVQ. Click here to order yours. Please note: This is an event for professional attendees only.
Lake joined Remedy shortly after it formed 30 years ago, and the studio has changed a lot in that time. It now works on multiple projects, and Lake isn’t the only creative director at the company (Control’s Mikael Kasurinen being the other). But there remains a familiar core team, which Lake feels is important when it comes to the studio’s long-term success. He thinks it’s crucial that Remedy keeps building upon the work it’s done in the past, innovating in some areas but sticking with the successful segments, and not reinventing the wheel every time. That’s easier to do with a settled team that can take the learnings from one project to the next.
“I am personally really excited about the possibilities with Annapurna on TV and film. We've been trying to get something started [in that space] on and off for years, and we are in the very early stages now”
It'll be a little while until we find out what Sam Lake’s next game will be, although Remedy certainly has its hands full with upcoming games including co-operative online shooter FBC: Firebreak, Control 2 and the remakes of the first two Max Payne titles (all of which Lake will be supporting to varying degrees). There is also another Remedy-related project that’s in its early stages, and it’s this that is proving most exciting to Lake.
In August last year, Remedy signed a commercial partnership with Annapurna Pictures around its Control and Alan Wake franchises. The deal gives the movie production company the rights to make films and TV shows based on the games (which take place in the same fictional universe). Lake has never hidden his love for film, with his games frequently utilising live action video, and he’s hopeful that he can play a role in bringing these Remedy franchises to the big and small screens.
“We have a lot of games in the making, which keeps me busy for sure,” Lake concludes. “I am personally really excited about the possibilities with Annapurna on TV and film. We've been trying to get something started [in that space] on and off for years and years, and we are in the very early stages now. I am aware it's a complex process and you never know, but I have to say that [Annapurna] is a wonderful partner. I am cautiously optimistic about our exciting discussions there. I hope to be able to be involved in that process as it goes forward.”
Five things we learned from our Sam Lake interview
1. He always carries a notebook
With Sam Lake picking up lifetime achievement awards, the conversation inevitably turns to what comes next for the writer and director. He insists he’s far from finished creating games, and that new ideas “won’t stop coming.”
“Even when taking a break and going on holiday,” he tells The Game Business. “I've learned to always carry a notebook with me because that's when the ideas start coming.”
Did he take that notebook with him when he took his six month sabbatical?
“Oh yes. I had plenty of ideas.”
2. He’d like to make a Moomins game
Well, sort-of.
When we do these interviews, we often have a speed-round section at the end where we ask our guests to answer a series of questions, some of them professional, but most of them for fun. One question we like to ask creatives is this one: ‘If you could work on a franchise other than your own, what would it be?’ Star Wars maybe? Batman? Lord of the Rings? With Sam Lake, I half expected it to be Twin Peaks or X-Files. Instead, he picked Moomins, the troll-like creatures from the series of children’s novels, comics and short stories written by Finnish author and artist Tove Jansson. It was not an answer I was expecting, but now I feel it needs to happen.
3. His coffee videos are the result of needing to promote Alan Wake Remastered
You’ve probably seen the Sam Lake videos of him slowly taking a sip of coffee, usually accompanied by some famous name, with moody music added for dramatic effect. It’s simultaneously ordinary and bizarre, and something you might see in a David Lynch film. Yet the idea for these videos came from a very practical need.
“Alan Wake Remastered didn't have a huge marketing campaign and I wanted to do my part,” Lake explains. “So I did couple of goofy [TikTok] videos, finding our Alan Wake coffee thermos in the forest and in a lake, and did these videos. And then forgot all about them. When we were gearing up for the Alan Wake 2 campaign, I tried to think of something that would be so easy and wouldn't be stressful to [do]. And traveling all around the world promoting the game… I just started thinking that, well, [how about] taking a sip of coffee wherever I am in the world, doing a video and putting some nice music in the background? And it's been going on for several years now and with a lot of amazing guest stars joining in.”
And the fans have embraced it.
“A lot of the fans have been doing their own coffee videos and linking them over social media. And I really appreciate the effort.”
4. He doesn’t consider himself an auteur
Sam Lake wore many hats during the development of Alan Wake 2. He was the creative director, he wrote the script, he co-directed the live action elements, he even got involved with the music. Oh, and he acted in the game, too.
I suggested this made him something that is rare in the AAA space: a video game auteur. He disagreed.
“I really believe in collaboration,” Lake insists. “Kyle Rowley was the game director, so we were co-directing this whole thing. I was writing [the script] together with Clay Murphy. Anssi Määttä is our live action director, so we were co-directing the live action parts. And there were, as I said, wonderful musicians. I had a very talented professional partner in every area who could contribute in a big, big way and also carry it if I was needed somewhere else.”
5. He initially wanted to be a novelist, and may still be one day
Before entering the world of video games, Lake hoped to be a novelist. And it remains an ambition.
“I was thinking that I would be a novelist then Remedy happened,” he says. “This has been a 30-year detour to that dream. I'm hoping that I will get a chance once I finally retire from making games to still do creative work, and have smaller, more personal projects. But not yet.”
That’s it for today. For the full interview, check out the video above where we also discuss his public persona, Remedy’s move into self-publishing and not leaving new fans behind with Remedy’s connected universe. We’ll be back on Thursday with our news and analysis show, featuring an old friend.
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