The Definition of Insanity

When Remedy had an exclusive game announcement at the Xbox One reveal, my heart fluttered for a moment. Back at the beginning of the year, a blog had been written, titled This House of Dreams. It was Alan Wake affiliated, even if the blog didn’t explicitly state so. I was, as were many other people, confident that it would all happen again, in a town called Ordinary.

Fast forward to the Xbox One reveal, and Remedy is pitching Quantum Break, a game that sounds a lot like Psycho Break in title alone, but probably is nothing like the horror game from Tango Gameworks. While we’ve seen very little of Quantum Break, one can’t help but point out similarities to Alan Wake, even from what we’ve seen so far. Once those comparisons are made, it’s hard not to wonder if Remedy will go down the same path with Quantum Break as it did with Alan Wake.

Quantum Break looks promising, don’t get me wrong. That being said, we know very little about Quantum Break, only that the meld of television and game play looks eerily similar to Alan Wake. I’m going to try as hard as I can not to make this sound like fan girl bias, but it’s going to come out that way anyway. Quantum Break will be an Xbox One exclusive, meaning no PlayStation 4 release, no PC release and no Wii-U release. Let’s be honest here, how well did that work out for Remedy in the past? The company actually went on record to state that Alan Wake was originally intended to be a multiplatform release. They were pretty mum on why the original multiplatform idea was canned, but would say that it wasn’t due to technical limitations.

In his last video message to Alan Wake fans, Creative Director Sam Lake stated humbly that Alan Wake didn’t sell too well initially. Despite critical acclaim, even though, for a while Alan Wake was almost analogous to an AOL Online floppy disc that you’d get with a new computer in the late 90s, it just didn’t resonate well with Xbox 360 owners. To add insult to injury, Alan Wake was the second most pirated game on the 360 in 2010, right behind Dante’s Inferno with 1,140,000 copies downloaded. Considering that the game just recently broke two million copies, the fact that it was pirated that many times in one year is a kick in the teeth with steel-toed boots.

Many people chalked up Alan Wake‘s struggles to the fact that the game had gone through a six year development cycle, and then canned the PC edition, which ticked off a lot of potential buyers. Also noted was the fact that the release date put it up against other big names, like Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption. Some people even went so far as to say that, without multiplayer, Alan Wake didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell on the Xbox 360. Again, trying not to let a little console bias get in the way, but Xbox prides itself on extensive multiplayer experiences and, although the PlayStation has certainly caught up significantly in that regard, there’s no guaranteeing that the beginning of the next console generation will be any different than the beginning of the current console generation.

Probably one of the better things Remedy has going for it with Quantum Break, aside from their unique take on blending television with the gameplay (how they plan to do that remains to be seen), is the release schedule. If everything goes as planned, Quantum Break should be released pretty close to the launch of the Xbox One, so the folks out there who are early adopters would ultimately purchase it when they get tired of watching TV on their Xbox on their TV…wait…yeah, that’s right.

Don’t get me wrong, I want Quantum Break to succeed. I was disappointed when Remedy didn’t announce Alan Wake 2 at the Xbox One reveal, but would never wish any ill-will on the company. If Quantum Break succeeds as a game, Remedy can keep making great games and bring Alan Wake back from the Dark Place.