‘Alan Wake 2’ Shows How Games Can Do Multiverses Better Than Hollywood

The multiverse is everywhere, from the unstoppable Marvel machine to Oscar-winning films like Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) — and even dozens of fan theories about My Little Pony. Every single facet of entertainment has started toying with universe-hopping storytelling, and yes, that includes video games. 

This year alone, over a half dozen games have created their own multiverses — like trading NPC allies with other Dragon’s Dogma 2 players across realities. There’s been a dramatic uptick in these kinds of explorations, and there’s a good reason for that, according to Alan Wake 2 creative producer Sam Lake. 

“The multiverse is a concept that allows you, in a sophisticated way, to explore what it is to be a human being. Because, in our heads, I feel we are in a multiverse,” Lake says, “More and more we live in so many places at one time, and reality is fragmented through social media and different versions of the truth being bombarded at us. On a conceptual level, we’re all living in a multiverse.” 

While the concept of alternate universes and timelines has hit a boom in film and TV in recent years, video games have subtly been exploring the concept for decades, and pushing the bounds of what interactive stories can achieve in the process. As video games grow bigger and more complex, the future of multiversal storytelling lies with them.

In Another World

With each passing year, it feels like society has more entertainment to consume than ever and more social media platforms to consume your time. To Lake, that kind of fractured view of how to live is a primary reason we’ve seen multiverses explode, but video games have been flirting with the idea for longer than most mediums. That idea is echoed by Janina Gavankar, the actress behind Alan Wake 2’s Kiera Estivez — a government agent who stars in the recently released Lake House expansion.

“We have more information in our pockets than our little meat brains can handle. So, [multiverses] force us to think about the world outside of ourselves,” Gavankar says. “The last few years have done a great job of using multiverses well in storytelling, like the Spider-Verse. It’s now in the zeitgeist, and everybody understands it. They gave everyone an education.”

Gavankar, known for her Hollywood roles like Luna Garza in HBO’s True Blood, notes that however anyone feels about Marvel, it successfully popularized the idea of multiverses — and that’s something that everyone can now benefit from. But the proliferation of the concept hasn’t come without growing pains. A common criticism is that these kinds of stories can feel lazy, and plot holes can be waved away in an instant by jumping to another world or character. 

“I only think it’s lazy if you’re actually lazy. That means you’re just doing a bad job with the tool. It’s not a hammer,” Gavankar says. “Anybody who experiences anxiety or circular thinking can immediately identify with the idea of a multiverse. You’re constantly thinking about the other way things could have turned out.”

But while films portray a more static representation of the idea, the interactivity and reactiveness of video games are the special sauce that can really make exploration of a multiverse work better than any other form of entertainment. What you see in a TV show or film is a curated story, presented passively for audiences to ingest — but in video games the user decides how and when that narrative plays out; they’re in control. Video game creators have to account for that, opening up a wealth of opportunities in the process.

To Lake, it all hinges on the basics of storytelling — who is the point of view character, and how are we invested in their journey? Even with the absurdity multiverse stories can lead to, there still needs to be something to ground it, even in a video game.

“If we think about film or TV, we’re watching a very carefully curated experience. You can surgically craft very intense and emotional stories, but with games things are different in the sense that you are free to roam and do it all at your own pace,” Lake says. “That requires there to be a lot more content, but it’s also an opportunity. In Alan Wake 2, everything is connected, and even when the content is optional, it’s like a twisted mirror to the main story, echoing and giving the overarching narrative a new meaning. Games are unique in that the player is chasing a mystery and investigating it, interpreting it, and forming theories about it.

Threading The Needle

For decades, Lake has worked with his studio, Remedy Entertainment, to meticulously craft an interconnected universe. Known as the “Remedy Connected Universe,” these details don’t emerge as simple Easter Eggs, but subtly become massive stories that link all of Remedy’s games together in a complex spider-web, spurring on one of the most rabidly curious fan communities on the internet. At any given moment you can hop on the Remedy subreddit and see hundreds of theories on how Alan Wake 2 ties into the next Control game, or how the Max Payne remakes might take place in an alternate universe. 

Lake’s work has created an intense fascination for so many players, and a lot of it comes from how the creator was inspired growing up — reading Michael Moorcock’s multiversal science fantasy Eternal Champion series, on top of countless Marvel Comics. Of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the single most successful example of the multiverse, and what’s caused it to become a trend in mainstream storytelling. 

But the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels scattershot so far, without any real singular narrative focus or plan that ties its different realities together. But interestingly, that’s part of the strength of this format of storytelling, according to Jonathan Strauder, the lead writer of Life is Strange: Double Exposure — another multiverse-focused game released this year. 

That sense of ownership is only increased with a video game, because of the level of interaction players have to give to it — a game can often lead to deeper emotional attachment, through a sense of ownership of the experience, and how players spend dozens of hours inhabiting characters they love.

“I’ve been wanting us to get to the stage we’re at with Remedy Universe for a long time. I strongly felt that if we get to pull this off, we need to make it where every game, no matter if it’s a sequel or part of the universe, needs to stand on its own feet,” Lake explains. “Any one of these games can be a doorway into the universe. That’s very much part of the plan — like in Alan Wake 2 how we brought in a new hero, Saga Anderson, a newcomer who takes you into the world, and then we can delve into the deeper, darker layers of the universe after that.”

That idea is central to what has made Remedy games so special over the years — each one introduces wildly new ideas and mechanics, retaining that creative spark that Remedy is known for, while building up to something larger. While the team at Remedy has created “lore bibles” to compile everything, Lake gleefully says he occasionally pops into forums or wikis to remind himself of specific events or dates, ensuring he hasn’t forgotten everything. That means getting players invested can serve a dual purpose, both providing entertainment and creating a robust town square of community discussion that creators can tap into. 

An Alternate Future

In a way, that kind of interaction between creator and consumer is representative of video games at large, and for multiverses to flourish in pop culture, games need to keep leading the way. Film and TV have integrally different ideas of how to tackle the concept, but true innovation on reality-hopping storytelling has been happening in video games for years, and it should continue to be that way.

This year alone has seen some big strides in that regard. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a partial remake that uses the 1997 original as launching point for a twisty new story across different realities. Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes its multiverse a gameplay mechanic based on how you can recruit other players’ characters, called Pawns, via dimensional gateways. The game even had a feature where Pawns could contract a disease called Dragonsplague, and if you recruited one with the disease they could spread it to the NPCs in your world, ultimately causing a contagion that can potentially kill everyone in your game.

MultiVersus gives alternate realities a coat of Super Smash Bros. paint, bringing mascots from across Warner Bros. portfolio together for a fighting game, from Arya Stark to Superman. Past that, Marvel Rivals brings interdimensional hijinks to multiplayer shooters, taking the idea pioneered in comics and films to create multiplayer matches where an adorable shark named Jeff can fight the Hulk. Everywhere you look video games are trying to tackle the challenges of the multiverse, and that’s for good reason. For Strauder and the team on Double Exposure, it was a deliberate choice to try and push Life is Strange into the idea of a multiverse — and the vast opportunities it could present. 

“Personally, I think it’s confirmed we can trust audiences with more complex storytelling. Players enjoy serialized stories because we can build on what exists to create something richer, Strauder says. “And if we can use pseudo-science-based-but-plausible reason to subvert expectations in an entertaining way, we should trust the audience to come along with us.”

That idea of trusting the players is what will truly allow video games to ambitiously experiment, and Strauder has previously talked about how Remedy’s work in the space has directly inspired the team behind Double Exposure. That kind of iteration on established work and ideas is exactly what makes video games so primed to flourish with the idea of the multiverse. Lake has been exploring these ideas for decades, but he still thinks there’s plenty of room for video games to grow.

“There are untapped opportunities and ways to go deeper. You have your more comic book style multiverse, like we did with Time Breaker in the Night Springs DLC episode, and you have the concept of Alan in the Dark Place — which has multiverse elements. I think there’s a lot of territory in between to explore,” Lake says. “There are many different stories set in an interactive fashion, where players’ choices can affect what universes are born along the way. In that sense, every choice could branch to a new reality. I’d be disappointed if we wouldn’t see more innovative takes on that concept in the coming years.”