Alan Wake: Remedy talks DLC, flashlights

Remedy's Sam Lake has said that the DLC released for Alan Wake will have a "seasonal" feel to it, kind of like different volumes of a television series, with the original game being considered the "first season".

Speaking with Game Informer, Lake also revealed to the magazine just how much the use of light comes into play during the action in the game. Don't worry though, there's other weapons besides light.

"From the very beginning we have created Alan Wake to be something bigger than just one game," said lead writer Sam Lake told the mag.

"That was the goal all along, so yeah. The first game is the first season and it takes you deep into Alan Wake’s world. We feel that different TV series do this thing differently but we felt that the season needs to have a satisfying ending.

"Alan Wake needs to reach a certain conclusion and the player needs to be able to reach his goals but at the same time we want to open doors beyond this first game into a larger story.

"Yeah, this is the first season and we are going to be doing downloadable content afterward. Right now we are still concentrating on final tweaks and final, small polish issues. Once get this shipped then we are looking into downloadable content."

As far as atmosphere was concerned, Alan Wake will make use of different light-based gameplay placed "on top of the conventional action".

"Light is very important, it is the key gameplay element, said Lake. "You definitely can’t survive in Alan Wake without a light source. That’s what you need. You can almost think of light-based gameplay as an additional layer on top of the conventional action.

"So we have a wide variety of light-based tools in the game, different kind of flashlights, handheld flares, a flare gun…[a turret, the headlights of a car (added Oskari Hakkinen, head of franchise development)].

"We have more conventional weapons there as well. So the basic situation is that Alan Wake’s - this mysterious thriller manuscript that Wake cannot remember writing but seems to have been written by him is coming true and it talks about the dark presence that has woken up in the town of Bright Falls. In darkness, the dark presence can pretty much take over everything; people and animals and inanimate objects and vehicles as well.

"You need light. It depends on the strength of the light source and how strong that particular enemy is. How strong the dark presence is in this enemy. It’s a combination of these things. A flock of birds, for example, that is attacking you, you only need a normal flashlight and you can burn them away and they disappear. But for a stronger enemy you can only burn the dark presence away but the enemy keeps on coming at you and you need that conventional weapon to - although, if you have a very strong light source such as a flash-bang grenade or a flare gun or a searchlight you can destroy these enemies with light only."

Remedy says the game will not be all doom and gloom though, as flashbacks or memories take you back into the light in order to keep the player "grounded to reality".

"If it was just action from the beginning to the end, you would get numb to it and the scary bits wouldn't feel scary for long," added Lake.

Game's out on 360 May 18 and 21 in the US and Europe, respectively.