Alan Wake 2’s biggest wow moment was almost cut

Say it ain't so!

Alan Wake 2‘s biggest wow moment — a truly jaw-dropping sequence that we’ll delve into with spoilers below — was almost cut from the game, Remedy’s Sam Lake and Kyle Rowley confessed.

We are, of course, talking about the “We Sing” chapter found within Alan’s playable sequences.

“We Sing” not only offers up a fantastic musical number, but does so melding live-action, cinematics and gameplay. The production was a joint effort between a number of players including both Ilkka Villi and Matthew Porretta as Alan Wake, Sam Lake as Alex Casey, David Harewood as Warlin Door, and Poets of the Fall as the Old Gods of Asgard.

“It was really, really hard for a number of reasons to have a musical in this,” Lake told the Friends Per Second podcast (see below). “And there were many productions meetings [staff members said,] ‘come on, we need to cut this’.

“I was like, ‘absolutely not. We are not cutting it’.”

It’s a good thing Remedy didn’t cut the piece; it’s up there with Control‘s Ashtray Maze as a truly memorable experience.

Alan Wake 2 is now available on Windows PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PS5; we reviewed it here and had a chance to speak to both Lake and Rowley about it here.

Alan Wake 2 27 October 2023 PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Epic Games Store Buy on the Microsoft Store