‘Alan Wake 2’ Max Payne lookalike has been explained by game’s director

23 August, 2023

Alan Wake 2‘s The Dark Place trailer appeared last night (August 22) as part of the Gamescom Opening Night Live show, and fans were sent into a frenzy when it seemed that Max Payne would be a character in the new survival horror.

Introduced in Remedy Entertainment‘s shooter series of the same name, Max Payne is a detective and an undercover member of the mafia in New York City. Though he is voiced by James McCaffrey, he is portrayed by Sam Lake in the original game, and Lake is the writer of Alan Wake and the director of Alan Wake 2.

In the latest trailer, a character voiced by James McCaffrey and portrayed by Sam Lake slams Alan Wake against a wall and accuses him of being both a killer and cult leader. The similarities were obviously impossible to ignore and fans started to theorise that this is Max Payne, or at the least, a throwaway reference to the detective. Check it out below:

However, Lake squashed the speculation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “The easy, clear answer is that, out of our past games, Max Payne and Quantum Break are not part of the Remedy Connected Universe. They are not part of Remedy’s plans,” he said.

“That being said, in a purely speculative, Easter egg kind of way, I do love the idea of enabling our audience to come up with theories. I don’t want to shoot them down on that level,” admitted Lake. “We are making questions possible and giving ideas to people that they can then form their own theories. I think that’s very much part of the fun.”

The character that attacks Alan Wake is in fact the Dark Place’s interpretation of FBI agent Alex Casey. Casey is partnered with Saga Anderson, the other playable protagonist of the sequel, when they investigate the events of Bright Falls and Watery.

Interestingly, Alex Casey is one of Alan Wake’s fictional characters from his own series of novels, and Remedy Entertainment hinted at the character’s involvement several times before Alan Wake 2.

Recently, publisher Epic Games revealed that Alan Wake 2 would be delaying its launch date by 10 days.

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