Alan Wake Ends in a Cliffhanger

[modeps]

http://evavhost.com/i/news/alanwake.jpg

CVG (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=237763) has word that Microsoft's long awaited Alan Wake will conclude on a cliffhanger.

Writer Sam Lake told CVG: "We really feel there needs to be a satisfying conclusion [to the first game]. But at the same time, it needs to end in kind of a cliffhanger - and we need to open doors for a larger story beyond this one.

He added: "I think a good cliffhanger is always your friend - it keeps the tension high. That episodic structure of Alan Wake means you can always end the episode a couple of minutes or a few seconds before things are resolved [to make people want more]."

This lends more creditability to rumors that the game isn't complete as is, despite being in the cooker for a long time. Effectively we're looking at Alan Wake Episode 1.

[modeps]

I also disagree that a cliffhanger is always a good thing. Modern Warfare 2 says what?

[Johan]

Alan Wake ends with my not buying it! :D

[Meusli]

A cliff hanger that may never be sorted as according to them if this does not succeed then they are finished. I will wait till they are all out before I go in.

[E Huntington]

It can be a satisfying cliffhanger though, can't it? Don't Mass Effect 1 and 2 both have cliffhanger endings? Wasn't Halo 3 somewhat of a cliffhanger? It can be a bad thing, but can't it also be satisfying and help drum up anticipation for a sequel?

[bean19]

I'll be interested to read reviews. I'm not sold on the premise and I never buy short games that I could rent instead.

@E Huntington - No. Both Mass Effect 1 and 2 have a finale that resolves an ongoing threat that is built throughout the game. They do hint at further threats. . . like a season finale of Battlestar Galatica. . . things are left unresolved but NOT the throughline of that series.

[Demo_Boy]

I like the way the TV show Heroes does cliffhangers. On the last show of the season, they close the plot on the previous season, then "end the show", but then the audience gets a bonus, as they show the first 10 minutes of the next season's opener, and this naturally ends in a cliffhanger.

This means the player gets a full story, plus a bonus peek at the next story.

[BlackHatKid]

This is the one part where DLC fails... it allows companies to send out incomplete games, or gives them the option to push out games, and send out patches later to fix them or extend the game with DLC, rather than include it in the original package.

Back in the day when games came on cartridges, that was the game, beginning to end, and it was developed... and the only patch for it when it didn't work was you blew into it.

I don't know, it just all starts to rub me the wrong way.

[Pluvious]

So what am I getting for my $60? A late game that will charge me for left out stuff and then no proper ending?? No thanks.

[Hale]

A cliff hanger? Awesome. In five, six years I'll find out that Alan Wake wasn't decapitated, it was his twin brother!

g@y.

[Phokal]

If Mario ended with the Princess in yet another castle, I don't think people would think it would "keep the tension high."

This isn't a passive experience. Gamer's like to win their games when they beat them.

[Metal Khaos]

Know what makes a cliffhanger a little less of a cliffhanger? Announcing your game ends in a fucking cliffhanger.

[blackzc]

So what am I getting for my $60? A late game that will charge me for left out stuff and then no proper ending?? No thanks.

You buy games based on this? Eh.

[Grumsh]

I like the way the TV show Heroes does cliffhangers. On the last show of the season, they close the plot on the previous season, then "end the show", but then the audience gets a bonus, as they show the first 10 minutes of the next season's opener, and this naturally ends in a cliffhanger.

This means the player gets a full story, plus a bonus peek at the next story.

If they do something like this and the game is good I will gladly buy the game (or if they do it like Mass Effects cliffhanger endings).

[eighties]

This game and heavy rain have alot in common :]

[Sensei-X]

Know what makes a cliffhanger a little less of a cliffhanger? Announcing your game ends in a fucking cliffhanger.

I for one am glad they did, makes crossing it off my list a whole lot easier.

[modeps]

This game and heavy rain have alot in common :]

Care to explain? I only finished Heavy Rain once, but my ending was concrete and certainly final.

[surj0]

So what am I getting for my $60? A late game that will charge me for left out stuff and then no proper ending?? No thanks.

I'm sorry, but this is just an ridiculous comment. It's not left out if its not done, its not late until they miss a publicly released deadline, and a cliff hanger can be a perfectly acceptable ending, especially when they intend to carry on with the series. Just because the game doesn't end with a nice bow and ribbon, does not mean that a.) you did not get your money out of it or b.) they did not spend all reasonable time and efforts making the content you're purchasing.

That's not always an excuse, some developers waste all their time or fail and then still sell it, and some do short change consumers with content that should have been included. But, we still know very little about this games final production values and making these kinds of broad assumptions at this point, is a little silly. Now, if you just don't like cliff hangers, ever, well that's different.

[SwitchBlade_Jax]

Care to explain? I only finished Heavy Rain once, but my ending was concrete and certainly final.


There is a cliffhanger teaser for a sequel if you get a certain ending. I finished the end twice so far and I got the teaser the first time. If Alan Wake does a teaser thats fine, if they do a HL2, they can go fuck themselves. 6 years and we are still waiting for a full resolution to HL2.

[Evil Avatar]

Is it too soon to say, "I told you so." Because I did. I did tell you so.

[modeps]

There is a cliffhanger teaser for a sequel if you get a certain ending. I finished the end twice so far and I got the teaser the first time. If Alan Wake does a teaser thats fine, if they do a HL2, they can go fuck themselves. 6 years and we are still waiting for a full resolution to HL2.

Yeah, I think that's the point here. If they do a legitimate "TO BE CONTINUED" I doubt I'll be a happy guy.

[Earth Djinn]

Since when does a cliffhanger = unfinished?

[rulyblue]

SiN Episodes.

Checkmate!

[atariv8]

Damn, would Max Payne 3 have been that hard for them to do...They need to follow the original Star Wars pattern, whole complete movie with a larger universe situation surrounding it. Too many movies/games make the mistake of assuming a episodic/trilogy right off the bat and those games typically fail. (Looking at you Advent Rising, Sin Episodes, etc.) My absolute love of Max Payne 1 & 2 is keeping this on my buy list.

[rulyblue]

Agreed! Tapping a dead horse is what the game (read: Halo, God of War, CoD) and movie industry (read: too many remakes of old movies) does best though.

[Azriel77]

Damn, every time some more news comes out about this game, it just confirms my decision to not get it at all. The broke it up so they can DLC it, now they admit it will have a cliffhanger. Screw that noise.

[Agnostic Pope]

Alan Wake ends with me not buying it! :D

Fixed! I'll get it when the 14 series of Lost is out on Blu ray and somebody stops throwing out plotholes... I mean...um Game of the Year edition!

[Raw]

OK, this has to be the stupidest thing to announce about a game that relies heavily on story telling. Would you buy Heavy Rain if the writer told you it would END on a cliffhanger?

[krozall]

Cliffhangers in Video game endings is LAME. Yeah I said it, I want a fulfilling conclusion. I love games that continue the story, but give it a real ending. The fact that the game doesn't have an ending is trouble. I don't care how good the game is, also what if this game sells bad, ends in a cliffhanger and is cancelled.

Yeah, no way that's going to happen.... right?

[eighties]

Sorry, i didn't mean alot in common story wise, but DLC wise.

If they try to sell more episodes as DLC or as a whole new game (which is what they should do)

[Wombat]

Beyond Good and Evil had a cliffhanger which may never be resolved. There have been others as well, such as Advent Rising. Unless they're absolutely certain a follow up will be made, a cliffhanger is not a good thing.

[Soylent Bob]

Effectively we're looking at Alan Wake Episode 1.

Effectively? What part of "That episodic structure of Alan Wake means you can always end the episode a couple of minutes or a few seconds before things are resolved" (not to mention the previous announcements that Alan Wake is going episodic) didn't you understand?

[Anenome]

Fail, you only get to end on a cliffhanger during the second installment. Everyone knows that. And even then it had better be compensated for in other ways.

The definition of ballsy:
http://www.geting.com/henrik/cliffhanger.jpg

[Anenome]

Actually, now that I look closer, it's pretty clear it's photoshopped :| shame, cool pict otherwise.

[Pluvious]

I'm sorry, but this is just an ridiculous comment. It's not left out if its not done, its not late until they miss a publicly released deadline, and a cliff hanger can be a perfectly acceptable ending, especially when they intend to carry on with the series. Just because the game doesn't end with a nice bow and ribbon, does not mean that a.) you did not get your money out of it or b.) they did not spend all reasonable time and efforts making the content you're purchasing.

That's not always an excuse, some developers waste all their time or fail and then still sell it, and some do short change consumers with content that should have been included. But, we still know very little about this games final production values and making these kinds of broad assumptions at this point, is a little silly. Now, if you just don't like cliff hangers, ever, well that's different.

If I want to skip a game that wants to dole out content that has been cut from the game and then add insult by not bothering to do a proper ending to game, then I have the right to do so. There's nothing ridiculous about it. I expect a beginning a middle and an end to my games. They've hyped this game for so many years and then they pull shit like this makes me want to vote with my dollars. :mad:

[Sif]

Cliffhanger is a surprisingly fluid word. They could mean anything from a properly-wrapped up story arc for Alan, with a teaser about the All Encompassing Evil thrown on at the end, to freezing the frame in the middle of a shocking twist end-cutscene!!!!!

If it's the former I have no real problem with that. I wish them the best, especially since the horror genre could really use some fresh blood.

[Grumsh]

I have a question, some have said they refuse to buy ALan Wake if it has a cliffhanger ending because you are being ripped off with DLC.

Ponder this, if Alan Wake as ships on the disc has 20 hours of play time would you still snub it?

If you said yes, I ask, "Did you buy or want to buy Heavy Rain?", A game with only 8 hours of play time.

Hipocriti.. I mean hypothetical question.

[Anenome]

I think we can all agree that Halo 2 ended on what can only be called an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending. That's at least one example of how not to do it.

Meanwhile, "Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back" the movie, is perhaps the most successful 2nd installment cliffhanger ending. It did things right, while still not wrapping up all the threads.

And think back to virtually every Hollywood movie ever made, where it's just so obvious that the end has been written in such a way as to leave one or two loose-ends for the creation of a sequel.
I hate that!

The best movies wrap everything up without making loose-ends obvious, and the 2nd movie can then surprise you by revealing new facts that create new loose ends without being ridiculous. That's the way to do it, generally.

Mass Effect 2 had a good 2nd installment ending. A major, incredible boss was taken out. Yet the larger danger of the Reapers remained in tact for the 3rd installment to deal with. That's a good way to perform a cliffhanger ending.

The wrong way to do the cliffhanger ending it to propose a dramatic problem and then suddenly end the movie without resolving it. In the movie "Misery" the antagonist rails against a cartoon episode she once saw where the episode was ended by having the main character trapped in a bus that goes off the road, hits, and explodes, apparently killing the main character. What angers her is that the next episode reveals that the main character was able to escape the crash by popping out a window shortly before the crash. And it's that manipulation of the facts that pissed her off.

[bean19]

Ponder this, if Alan Wake as ships on the disc has 20 hours of play time would you still snub it?

If you said yes, I ask, "Did you buy or want to buy Heavy Rain?", A game with only 8 hours of play time.

Hipocriti.. I mean hypothetical question.
I wouldn't snub Alan Wake if it has ~15 hours of game time. I'll likely rent it even if it has 30 hours as I'm not sold on the premise and though I've been PC gaming for ages, I'm not familiar with the original games, so it isn't a "must buy" Day One title for me like Mass Effect or FF XIII.

As for Heavy Rain, I thought I wanted to own it because I understood that even though it is 8 hours long, there are multiple story paths. However, from what I've read, the choices you make don't alter the story much at all and replaying the game is painful because so many of the actions you take are commonplace and dull. Still, I may end up purchasing it at a lower price simply because it does so many things in a new, refreshing way.

[Anenome]

Heavy Rain - resurrecting the control scheme from Dragon's Lair, circa 1983, and not even blushing.

[Agnostic Pope]

Heavy Rain - resurrecting the control scheme from Dragon's Lair, circa 1983, and not even blushing.

Moar like necrophilia!