In 2005, Max Payne creators Remedy first revealed their next title, a mystery-action game titled Alan Wake. A brief but live gameplay demo was shown behind closed doors at E3 of that year. A year later at E3 2006, Microsoft announced it had acquired the publishing rights to the game for both the PC and Xbox 360. Since then . . . silence.Today, the official message boards for the game had "a small update" on Alan Wake's progress from Remedy CFO Mika Reini. Reini seems to admit that there have indeed been some development problems along the way, stating, "...we've been in development for a long time and if everything had gone perfectly smoothly there probably would be a game out for you guys to play already. But designing a completely new game can be hard, and sometimes you need to take a detour to find the best route forward."There's still no word on when we will get more info on the title. much less a release date, but Reini does state, "We want to entertain you guys in the best possible way and our team is putting in every effort possible in order for that to happen. That is the way Remedy wants to do things. I'm sure you will enjoy Alan Wake when we're done."[Via Shacknews]...

There was a bit of excitement for people who have been following the development of Alan Wake for the past several years. The game, first announced in 2005 from developer Remedy, was named as a game its publisher Microsoft would show off at the Tokyo Game Show later this year. Well, it looks like that note was a tad premature.According to a post on the game's official message board, a Remedy team member said that there was some confusion on the news, stating, " . . . . this was not an announcement that Wake would be shown at TGS 2008. Remedy's team is just getting back from a bit of holiday and we haven't had time to chat with Microsoft on upcoming shows/showings yet." While it's still possible that the game will be shown at TGS, this would seem to push those hopes on the back burner yet again....

Alan Wake has been spotted... in Tokyo. According to a Microsoft promotional flyer the highly anticipated psychological thriller will make an appearance at the Tokyo Games Show in September. But there's more.Microsoft held a competition last year called "WOW - Win Experiences Money Can't Buy" that gave one lucky winner the chance to be "digitally made-over and inserted (virtually of course) into a blockbuster game!" That game being Alan Wake. Whoever the lucky winner was flew to Finland where they were digitally mastered and inserted into Wake's world. Well, a year is a long time to wait to see the finished product, but the second part of the prize will come to fruition in September when the winner will be flown to the 2008 Tokyo Games Show to finally see themselves on the screen.It looks like the hype meter for Alan Wake is set to go red-line later this year....

In 2005 Remedy, the original developers of the first two Max Payne games, officially revealed and showed a live in-game demo for their next project Alan Wake. The title, which was described as a thriller type of title in the vein of The X-Files and Twin Peaks, then went into stealth mode. At E3 2006, Microsoft announced they would publish Alan Wake for both the PC and Xbox 360 and showed off a little more gameplay footage. Since then there has been little to no info on Alan Wake from either Remedy or Microsoft making the game even more mysterious. We were hoping for some more info from Microsoft this week as they were holding a big Xbox 360 press event with a number of titles revealed to the media but alas Alan Wake was not among the games shown nor given a release date. Blog site Venture Beat chatted with Microsoft Games Studios head Shane Kim and asked him flat out, "Is Alan Wake scheduled for 2008?" Kim's reply was disappointing: "We haven't announced a firm date for Alan Wake . . " adding that they would announce such a date when they are ready to do so. So we are still in a holding pattern for the game...perhaps Microsoft will reveal more at E3 in July....