Ondanks het feit dat Alan Wake al voor de helft ontwikkeld was, had ontwikkelaar Remedy Entertainment er toch voor gekozen om het openwerelddesign te schrappen uit het spel, met alle goede consequenties van dien.

"The biggest mistake we made [while developing Alan Wake] was following a sandbox design. It simply did not fit with our story-driven focus", zegt Oskari Häkkinen, hoofd van de franchise bij Remedy. "A thriller is very much like a rollercoaster. You need those build-ups to make the plunges feel all the more exhilarating. We just weren't getting this in a sandbox design because all the game-istic things you need were detracting from the story being the focal point."

Remedy had ontzettend veel werk zitten in de open wereld en was in eerste instantie helemaal niet van plan om daarvan af te wijken. Toch heeft de studio dit gedaan en kwam erachter hoe goed de engine eigenlijk was om een lineair verhaal te vertellen.

"Because the environments were naturally much larger, we could make reference to things that could be seen in the distance and so foreshadow events. We could create landmarks so the player always had a sense of direction", zegt Häkkinen.

"Having flexibility within the environments also gave us the opportunity to make any given path as wide or as narrow as we pleased. It allowed us to play around with gameplay – narrow stealth areas like when the cops are chasing Wake, and wider areas to allow exploration and that sense of: 'Oh shit, I'm lost… what's in the woods?' So, yeah, it resulted in a much better game and it removed the linear feeling on the whole."

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