From Alan Wake to GTA: The UX Challenge of Making a Sequel

One particularly tricky UX topic is sequels. You've spent time carefully crafting an engaging experience.

You reach a certain level of success and then you decide to expand. 

After all, it’s only natural to want to build upon the work already done. But then some questions arise. How much should I change? A lot? Just a little?

To answer some of these questions we will take a look at some examples. Some successful, some less successful. 

The Timing Trap

First and foremost we need to take a look at the risks. There are several parameters that need to be taken into account. The timing for example. How soon is too soon? You release a game too close to the first opus and people will think the first one was in a sense a demo or beta, too late and the players may have forgotten the game altogether. 

Alan Wake 2 @Remedy

Alan Wake 2: The Long Wait

Let’s look at a perfect example: Alan Wake 2. Speaking of late sequels, here we have no less than 13 years.... 

13 years is a long time, by any standards. But in the video game world? Might as well have been a century. 

The average lifespan of a console is between 6 to 8 years. PC is a whole different story but you can expect a big gap in technology at around 4 to 6 years. 

Between the release of Alan Wake 1 in 2010 for the Xbox360 and the release of the sequel in 2023 there was the Xbox One and the Xbox Series, the PS3, PS4 and PS5. Three whole generations. Needless to say that the technical capabilities are totally different. 

Alan Wake was very much a product of its time. Meaning you can’t have the same gameplay in 2010 and 2023. Especially when this very specific game changed in scope to accommodate the technical limitations at that time. 

Remedy had a choice: either finally make the game they originally envisioned, now technically possible, or go in a new direction. The genre (horror games) also evolved. Third person shooters are not trendy anymore as they were in the PS360 era and since then we saw games such as Resident Evil 7 or 8 that renewed the whole genre. Even Remedy themselves evolved with games such as Control. So, what do they do? Adapt Alan Wake to what they did with Control? Go a whole different route? The easy road would’ve been to slap an "Alan Wake skin" on Control's gameplay and voilà!.

What they did is, according to me, the most sensible and smart thing they could do. 

They renewed the gameplay by observing what worked elsewhere and delivering an experience aligned with modern standards.

Goodbye third-person shooter, hello slower-paced survival horror.

How they pulled that off is what we’re going to look at now.

• Technical upgrade: this one’s obvious. You can’t release a game that looks 13 years old. Even if, for some reason, some studios still do,as recently as this year... (Captain Blood would be a good example). But history showed us that it was not a great idea. Alan Wake 2 however is gorgeous, maybe a little too much some may say. Indeed, if we look at the technical state on release and what is needed for the highest settings. 

• Upgrade in gameplay: For all the love I have for the first game. While the story still holds up, the gameplay clearly aged. Alan Wake was closer to Max Payne than Resident Evil, even at that time, and the whole horror part went in the second plan pretty quickly. We could already see and feel some parts that would be used again in Control. But they decided that the game needed a slower pace and lean more towards horror than action. They also took some ideas here and there to match what works in this genre. 

The true “tour de force” was keeping what made it unique and adapting it to modern standards. 

Nothing says that maybe we will look back in 13 years at it and also find it dated. But I doubt it very much. Alan Wake’s gameplay was nothing revolutionary, even at that time, and that was the main issue with it. 

Mass Effect 2 @Bioware

More and Better: Mass Effect 2 & Assassin’s Creed 2

The other approach is the 'more and better' route.

Let’s look for example at Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed and GTA. 

Mass Effect had the foundations to be really great, however it was somewhat repetitive and limited in its gameplay. The same goes for Assassin’s Creed. 

Sure we all know the licenses now, but let’s not forget that when the very first ones were released, let me check, in 2007 it was really something new and incredible. 

The groundwork was laid, allowing them to focus on polishing and expanding rather than rebuilding. Both Assassin’s Creed 2 and Mass Effect 2 being considered huge improvements and excellent games, some may even say the best entries in the whole licenses. 

This was possible because the games did not wait too long (2 and 3 years) and they could concentrate on ironing the quirks more than re-creating the whole thing. 

One common trap is going overboard. More isn’t always better, and finding the right balance is harder than it looks. 

Assassin’s Creed somewhat fell into that trap with its towers and collectibles. A hundred feathers might have been a tad too much. Ubisoft became so known for overstuffing their games that they eventually turned into a parody of themselves.

Yes this is a 13 years old game.

The Bold Move: GTA and Perspective Shifts

And finally you have Grand Theft Auto. 

GTA is fascinating because Rockstar chose to go their own way. They do not follow specific patterns, and if they do, it is not for long. 

They went from a trendy, even gimmicky series, built on the shock value of its setting, to establishing the very standard of open-world design. One of the boldest choices was changing the perspective, and the way the game is played, between the second and third opus. 

And also waiting 13 years between the 5 and 6th mainline entries.

Not many companies would do that, sitting on the most lucrative license existing in the video game industry for so long. 

Sure, your game bringing home 1 billion dollars a year may help. 

It will be very interesting to see what GTA 6 brings. There is only so much you can do in a specific setting and genre and I have to admit I’m unsure what’s left for them to reinvent. 

Will they just rely on the fact that we haven’t had anything new to chew on for 13 years or will they revolutionize the whole genre, again? 

Rockstar has already shown that if anyone can pull it off, it’s them.  

But wait! There’s more! 

Next week, we’ll dive into sequels that didn’t fare as well. For various reasons, like changing the whole business model or missing the mark on what made the game successful in the first place and wanting to make a game based on trends and not the license DNA.