10 Ways Your Favourite Video Games Were Almost Radically Different

8. Alan Wake

alan wake
Remedy

In development for over six years, the Xbox 360 exclusive Alan Wake went through multiple iterations before becoming the cult classic it is today.

Originally wanting to create an open world game after working on the linear third-person action series Max Payne, Remedy built the town of Bright Falls with the idea that players would be able to freely explore it in mind.

Unfortunately, after trying and failing to make the open world focus of the gameplay work with the linear nature of the storytelling, the devs scrapped the sandbox idea and instead restructured the title around a more focused, episodic design inspired by the studio's TV show influences.

Weirdly enough though, you can still see the open world DNA of original iteration in the final release. The ability to drive from one part of a mission to the next seems like a hangover from the original vision, and might indicate that Remedy didn't scrap their sandbox focus as early in development as they intitially claimed.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.