Artists are almost always inspired by other artists, and Remedy's Kyle Rowley, the game director for Alan Wake 2, is no different, saying he wanted the team to be the "European Naughty Dog."
Speaking on the Behind The Voice podcast about his time on Quantum Break, Rowley says "One of my favorite games at the time was Uncharted. I remember having a discussion with our lead animator at the time and I was like, 'I think we should be aiming to be like a European version of Naughty Dog. That would be cool, if we could get that same, like, feel.'"
There's no doubt that the Uncharted series feels amazing to play. To this day I'm still in awe of the train sequence at the opening of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Add fantastic stories, and it's easy to see why Rowley would find Naughty Dog aspirational.
He took to Twitter to clarify his comments. He explains he was talking about the time when Remedy was working on Quantum Break, the often overlooked time-bending third-person shooter. "We had a lot of action set pieces and we were referencing the Uncharted games quite a lot," he writes. "We wanted the player character to seamlessly move in and out of narrative animations from gameplay, TLoU was a strong reference here."
He concludes with a definitive, "Naughty Dog games are fucking awesome." I grew up absolutely adoring Naughty Dog's games. I've even got a Krimzon Guard from Jak 2 tattooed on my arm. As for Remedy, I need to give it more of a chance. I bounced off Control pretty quickly and only ever played the demo for Alan Wake. Maybe this is the year I get into Remedy.
If you're excited for more Naughty Dog, check out everything we know about Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, its new upcoming game.
