Alan Wake will return 'when the time is right'

The Alan Wake series will return "when the time is right," developer Remedy Entertainment has said. In a new video, creative director Sam Lake explained that despite attempts to make a full-on sequel, things never worked out.

"After the first game, we worked hard to make the sequel happen. But you know these games are huge undertakings and many things need to fall in place," Lake said. "The right partners and the funding. From the creative perspective, it would be awesome if we could just create cool stuff and not worry about minor details like money. But we all know that that's not the case."

Lake explained that Alan Wake was not an instant success, but has since become a cult classic with franchise sales (Alan Wake and Alan Wake's American Nightmare) crossing 3 million units. He said the studio would like to return to the franchise some day, but only under the right terms.

"Even though we worked hard on it, the sequel wasn't happening. The time wasn't right for that," Lake said. "Sure, we could have gone ahead and created something less ambitious, but we felt that that wouldn't have done justice to [fans], to us--we want to be really proud of everything we create--and certainly wouldn't have done justice to Alan Wake."

"Alan Wake is really dear to me and to everyone at Remedy. We definitely want to keep on working on Alan Wake," he added. "I definitely want to create something new for Alan Wake when the time is right."

Lake also took a moment to discuss Remedy's just-announced Xbox One-exclusive, Quantum Break, which was revealed during the platform's announcement on Tuesday. He described the game as the "ultimate Remedy experience."

"Happily, we got a full backing for something new. A new concept. A new IP," Lake said. "Something big; something bigger than what we have created ever before. Something where we can take everything that we have learned from Alan Wake; everything that we have learned from Max Payne. And we were able to put that all together and to create what could be called the ultimate Remedy experience. "