Exploring the Remedy Connected Universe | Hidden Machine

[Music] hey it's matt from hidden machine and i'm here today to talk about a rather complicated topic it's the remedy connected universe i started casually working on this video several months ago but over that time i wound up delving deeper into the games and their lore than i ever thought i could when i finally made my way back up to the surface so to speak i came back with a much more nuanced understanding of how remedy games are connected and i'd like to try to share that with you remedy games all build on one another both refining and expanding upon what previous games have presented to players there are constant nods to other remedy games there are themes and characters that echo throughout different series and there are gameplay mechanics and narrative devices that have appeared and reappeared for fans of remedy all of these elements have not only created a distinct remedy feel to their games but also a sort of connected universe that all remedy games seemed to take place in this idea was officially presented for the first time in 2020 with controls awe dlc which directly linked control and ellen wake but if we go back further into remedy's catalog we can see many different instances and iterations of this connected universe concept in a 2013 reddit ama remedy's creative director sam lake said that to him all of the remedy stories are connected and linked in weird ways and that they are all part of the same multiverse now is it all canon well sometimes and sometimes not we'll get into why that is but for now strap in and let's explore the remedy connected universe [Music] remedy has become known for cinematic narrative driven games but their first game is an arcade style racer 1996's death rally was published by apogee and featured a cameo from duke nukem death rally sees the player competing in deadly races in pursuit of fortune and glory throughout the game you work to upgrade your vehicle with your ultimate goal being winning a one-on-one race against the adversary so that you can become the king of the death rally while the game does have a great animated opening scene most of the story is told through these little blocks of text at the bottom of the screen between races essentially a man who identifies himself as true tom rimer speaks to the player through their car radio true tom is someone who once challenged the adversary to a race and lost according to true tom he now speaks to you from his car coffin grave while players wouldn't operate a vehicle in another remedy game until 2010's alan wake one thing from death rally that would carry over directly to remedy's next game 1999's max payne is the overall tone of the writing just imagine max payne reciting a line like this this is how it goes you are driving you are saying hang on baby this is what i do it's doable alright winnable and the bullets take the sky like clouds of locusts the end is nigh [Music] that dreary metaphor laden style is an undeniable part of what makes max payne such a memorable experience and both games were written by sam lake who as we mentioned earlier is the current creative director at remedy if you want to experience death rally you can actually get it for free on steam there's also a 2011 remake of death rally that updates the graphics and controls and also adds a few easter eggs that we'll mention later on in this video i want to move on to remedy's next game max payne but let's put a pin in that idea of a poet named tom who communicates with the player through some supernatural means [Music] max payne is a game about a new york city detective who was out to avenge the death of his family but soon finds himself in the middle of an enormous conspiracy max thinks that he's up against some mid-tier drug traffickers but soon realizes that he's facing forces that are more powerful than the us government the game begins in 2001 during the worst blizzard that new york city has ever seen max payne stands at the top of a skyscraper the acer building as police swarm the scene the story pauses there and brings us back to when max was still with the nypd after leaving work one day he returned to his home in new jersey only to find that three men had broken into his house and murdered his wife and newborn baby no no no god no please michelle oh baby the killers were high on a new designer drug called valkyr or v for short max then transferred to the dea the drug enforcement administration where he worked on the valkyr case for three years before finally getting a break in the case it was discovered that jack lupino a member of the punchinello crime family led by angelo punchinello was trafficking val'kyr max decided to go undercover and infiltrate the family in an attempt to find the source of the drug his only contacts at the dea at the time were his partner alex balder and agent bibi one night max gets a call from agent bibi telling him that he needs to meet with his partner alex immediately this struck max is odd because he hadn't met with alex in person since going undercover max smelled a setup and he turned out to be right alex was murdered in front of max by an unknown assailant before he knew it max's cover was blown and the police suspected him of murdering alex both the mob and the nypd were now on max's tail from that point on the game is a winding and continuously unfolding story of revenge and conspiracy max eventually made his way to angelo punchinello's manor and it seemed like he had finally found the source of the drug that took his family from him however soon after his arrival the manor was stormed by mercenaries hired by a pharmaceutical company named acer the mercs killed punchinello and gave max a seemingly lethal dose of valkyr and then set fire to the manor miraculously max survived and this led him down another rabbit hole max discovered that valkyr was developed during the gulf war as part of something called the valhalla project the drug was intended to give soldiers greater stamina and morale in battle but due to poor results the project was shut down the drug caused extreme hallucinations and violent behavior in those who took it turning them into unhinged killers with no grip on reality we find out that a woman named nicole horn secretly restarted the project through her company acer the whole picture becomes much more clear when we learn that michelle payne max payne's now-deceased wife was working at a district attorney's office when a file on the illegal resurrection of the valhalla project mistakenly wound up on her desk in order to silence michelle payne nicole horn authorized a field test of the drug wherein three subjects were given belkier and set loose upon the payne residence max now had a new target acer and its president nicole horn having realized that things were getting out of control horn initiated operation deadeyes an order that called for the extermination of all staff and evidence related to the production of valkyr the underground bunker where the drug was produced was destroyed but only after max learned the truth about the death of his family max also learned that agent bibi had been on horn's payroll and was in fact the person who murdered his partner alex balder soon after max was able to track down bb and kill him max was then contacted by alfred woden a member of a secret society called the inner circle and a meeting between max and the group was arranged we learned that the inner circle had ties to the initial valhalla project in the mid 90s woden let max know that nicole horn was a former member of the inner circle and that he could have all of max's crimes pardoned if he agreed to take her out mercenaries sent by horn invaded the meeting and killed everyone present except for max and woden max agreed to kill nicole horn and battled his way through the acer building eventually defeating horn at the top of the building this brings us back to the opening scene of the game having just gone on a massive killing spree and still suspected of alex balder's murder max is arrested however max sees that alfred woden is standing in the crowd surrounding the scene a knowing glance from woden while max is taken away lets him know that he'll be all right [Music] i said earlier that remedy games build on one another max payne built on the narrative style of death rally and introduced a whole slew of elements and themes that we'll see revisited in other remedy games going forward sometimes these elements show up as direct references or easily recognizable iterations of one another but other times they're more obscured like an echo or a reverberation of something that has appeared in a previous game for example not only did death rally introduce us to the writing of sam lake which went on to become a core element of max payne it also introduced us to sam lake who appears as the model for max payne and while remedy games will often echo or reinterpret themes or storylines of other remedy games the story of max payne does this with norse mythology in norse mythology valkyries are female figures who watch over battles deciding who will live and who will die the valkyries then select half of the dead and bring them to valhalla where they become and here you are and i'm doing my best with these norwegian words these and here you are serve odin the god who rules over valhalla odin is a part of a clan of gods called the acer which includes other gods like thor and balder the einheriyar are destined to be odin soldiers during ragnarok which is a series of apocalyptic events which includes a great war among all the gods balder's death is said to be the first in a chain of events that sets off ragnarok in max payne the death of alex balder sets off the cataclysmic chain of events that culminates in a number of highly powerful figures waging war against one another including the eyepatch wearing alfred woden woden is another name for odin a powerful one-eyed god there are many more references and allegories when it comes to max payne and norse mythology and while you don't need to be aware of them to enjoy the game being aware of them does make for a much more rich experience which is something that we'll see at play while exploring the rest of the remedy catalog any single remedy game can be very enjoyable to newcomers but after having played all of their games it becomes apparent that remedy has taken great care to reward their hardcore fans and create rich multi-layered experiences the mastery on display here is exemplified by the fact that these rich deep layers and lore don't do anything to take away from or distract people who aren't totally immersed in them each game holds up on its own but combined they become something even more and i think that's very special [Music] i lied to myself that it was over it wasn't over and it would get worse before the end [Music] in 2003 remedy released max payne 2. the full title on the box reads max payne 2 the fall of max payne a film noir love story although some copies of the game do seem to omit that last line the love story being referred to here is the connection between max payne and mona sacks mona was introduced in the first max payne game as an assassin who is the twin sister of lisa the abused wife of mob boss angelo punchinello nicole horn put out a hit on punchinello and to seek justice for punch nello's treatment of her sister lisa mona decided to take the contract for that hit later on mona was ordered by horn to also kill max payne but refused to do so and was shot in the head by acer's mercenaries her body slumped down into the corner of an elevator and max presumed that she was dead much like the first game the story of max payne 2 was another twisting mystery-filled journey that's told out of order experiencing the story in the order that the game presents it is definitely the way to go but i'll do my best to just summarize things here taking place several years after the events of the first game max now finds himself back on the force as an nypd detective he's called to check out reports of a gunfight taking place at a warehouse owned by the russian mobster vladimir lem lem was introduced in the previous game as a rival to the punchinello family and an ally to max payne lem has since become a very powerful crime boss and his warehouse is being attacked by a group of hitmen called the cleaners upon entering the warehouse max finds himself in the cleaner's crosshairs and as he attempts to investigate the situation he unexpectedly runs into mona sacks before they can have a proper reunion she quickly disappears into an elevator just like she did the last time that max saw her backup support from the nypd arrives and max is able to escape the cleaners back at the precinct max learns that senator sebastian gate has been murdered and that mona sachs is a prime suspect max's new partner valerie winterson has been assigned to the case but max decides not to say anything about just having seen mona at the warehouse max makes contact with vladimir lem and learns that lem is at war with vinny gogniti a mobster who max interrogated and then left for dead in the first game like lem gogniti also has climbed the ranks in the criminal underworld and is now a serious threat to lem mona eventually gets in touch with max and he meets her at her new hideout deep within an abandoned funhouse she explains to max that the cleaners are working for the inner circle the mysterious secret society that max encountered in the previous game the inner circle are trying to wipe out everyone who knows of their existence but mona claims to have a contact on the inside who is willing to talk and expose the plot max and mona attempt to meet this contact only to find that the cleaners got to him first the scene gets ugly and police eventually arrive and arrest mona while incarcerated mona pleads with max to let her go suspecting that she could still be taken out by the inner circle even while held behind bars before long the cleaners break into the precinct but mona is able to escape amidst all the chaos she eventually reunites with max and their hunt for the people responsible for the attack leads them to a construction site where they are again confronted by the cleaners suspiciously max's partner valerie winters also shows up at the construction site and holds mona at gunpoint winters claims that she is only there to arrest mona however mona believes that winters is aligned with the inner circle and that she intends to kill her instead of just arresting her in a split second decision max shoots winters but before she dies she shoots back at max leaving him hospitalized the cleaners raid the hospital in search of max payne but max escapes and makes his way to alfred woden's manner to confront woden about why the inner circle is hunting him he finds woden in a weakened state wheelchair bound and battling cancer odin tells max that there has been a mutiny in the inner circle and that a renegade faction has been taking over murdering everyone who opposes their rule this renegade faction turns out to be led by vladimir lem woden says that he was at one time a mentor to lem but that lem has since turned on him lime had been using the cleaners to take over the inner circle and was also planning on killing vinnie gogniti so that he could take over the criminal underworld of the city as well max races to gognity in an attempt to save him from lem but is ambushed by lemon as men lem reveals to max that it was actually alfred woden who sent the valhalla project files to the district attorney's office as an act of intimidation and that max's family wound up paying for it lamb also claims that mona had been hired by woden to not only kill any inner circle members who decided to side with lem but also to kill max payne lem then shoots max leaving him to die but max is rescued by mona although max isn't entirely sure that he can trust mona they go together to alfred woden's manor to stop lem from killing woden well at woden's manor mona turns on max and pistol whips him but she hesitates and is unable to kill him suddenly lem appears behind mona and fatally wounds her woden emerges apologizing to max exclaiming that the killing has gone on long enough he attempts to disarm lem but lem shoots him to death max leaps up to take out lem but lem triggers an explosion in the building and attempts to escape max follows lem and he is eventually able to take him out the nypd shows up at the manor finding max payne wounded but still alive the story ends with max saying that he had a dream of his dead wife but that it was all right i had a dream of my wife she was dead but it was all right [Music] as the credits roll the song late goodbye by the band poets of the fall begins to play the song is built around a poem written by sam lake sam and marco saristo the lead vocalist of the band have been friends for many years the story goes that while driving together one night the idea of collaboration came up this was back in 2003 and at the time marco had just formed an early version of poets of the fall while sam lake was working on max payne 2. a few weeks later marco was presented with the poem and the track was soon born the song is a motif throughout the game being whistled sung and played on a piano by various characters [Music] it's late goodbye hey hey nypd late goodbye went on to be released as a successful first single from the band's debut album in 2004 and is still a fan favorite in the band's catalog however this wasn't the first time that the members of poets of the fall were involved in a remedy game although they were replaced by other actors in max payne 2 marco sarstow and ali tookyainen played the roles of vladimir lem and vinnie gogniti in the first max payne game and again i'm really doing my best with all these finnish and norwegian words and names in this video this is an early instance of something that we'll see more and more of in remedy games as we go forward people being brought into the fold and taking on all sorts of different roles in subsequent projects we'll have a lot more to say about poets of the fall but for now let's look a bit deeper into max payne 2 and its connection to the first game as we begin to understand more about this remedy connected universe at various points in max payne 1 and 2 the player will come across television sets among other things you'll find episodes of several television shows including lords and ladies a dress unknown and captain baseball batboy lords and ladies is a sort of goofy romance show set in the victorian era it focuses on the relationship between lord valentine and lady amelia captain baseball batboy is an animated children's show the show is based on an in-game newspaper comic strip created by a cartoonist named sammy waters address unknown clearly takes inspiration from twin peaks the show is presented as a cult series from the 1990s and the story is spread out through seven episodes one episode is in the first max paying game and an additional six episodes are featured in max payne 2. while the first appearance of the show seems to be little more than just a nod to twin peaks the rest of the episodes offer a sort of parallel story to the one being told throughout max payne 2. a dress unknown takes place in noir york city and follows a man named john who has been framed for the murder of his girlfriend by his doppelganger a serial killer named john mira the series concludes with jon looking into the mirror to discover that he himself had been john mira all along in several scenes throughout max payne 2 max hallucinates his own doppelganger the story of the game mimics the stories in the in-game television shows and vice versa until the details about which one came first begin to become a little bit hazy we'll definitely see more of this as we go on with remedy creating in-game meta-narratives that are entertaining enough at face value but under analysis turn out to be echoes and mirrors of the main storylines max payne 2 also features two instances of a blacksploitation style show called dick justice dick has been framed for the murder of his wife and in an attempt to find the real killers dick justice goes on a violent murder spree no no oh don't know god jared baby stranded in the dark and violet night dick justice a lone hard-boiled fugitive cop framed for the murder of his wife on a quest for vengeance through the criminal underworld in the city's heart of darkness the rain was coming down like all the angels in heaven had decided to take a piss at the same time in a situation like mine you can only think in metaphors they had killed the love of my life they were going to pay the story mirrors the events of the first max payne game for some the name dick justice might bring to mind the show swift justice the show is produced by law and order producer dick wolf and starred max payne's voice actor james mccaffrey dick justice was actually one of the working titles for the game max payne along with dark justice and max heat it's been said that while max payne was in production remedy paid around twenty thousand dollars to secure international copyrights to the name max heat only to later decide to go with the name max payne instead however a character named max heat does appear as an adult film star on a tv commercial in max payne 2. so it wasn't a total wash he has a female co-star named laura norder and if you want to stretch it one could assume that laura norder is a play on the show law and order produced by dick wolf who also produced swift justice which starred james mccaffrey thus bringing the whole thing full circle in a weird way the release of max payne 2 marks an important point in remedy's history and it's also crucial to understanding the remedy connected universe when the game was first announced it was also announced that take two interactive the parent company of rockstar games had purchased all the rights to max payne and everything that came with it that means they got the story the characters the game engine all of it this was a historic deal it was the first time that a highly successful intellectual property like this would change hands without the development studio also being sold off the money that remedy made on this deal would go on to sustain the studio for the next several years as they worked on their next release 2010's alan wake but before we get into that let's make a pit stop in 2008 which saw the release of max payne starring mark wahlberg [Music] there's an army of bodies under this river criminals reaching up to welcome me is one of their own it was an easy mistake to make [Music] the film was initially optioned all the way back in 2001 before the game was even released remedy was still a very young company at the time and everything i've read suggests that some folks within the company were maybe a bit overzealous and quickly signed the deal to option the movie believing that it would ultimately be a good pr move for the game an independent game studio optioning a hollywood movie for a game that hadn't even been released yet certainly sounded like an interesting headline hollywood had been historically unkind to video game adaptations up until that point and well the max payne movie turned out to be no exception to that rule the movie kind of sucks it has a 16 rating on rotten tomatoes and a 31 out of 100 over on metacritic remedy had nothing to do with the creation of the film and if you're looking to take in all the media related to the remedy connected universe you can safely skip this one now back to alan wake this game had a rather arduous development cycle going from an open world mission based game to the linear narrative that we eventually received that whole process has been very well documented and i'll leave a few links below this video if you want to learn more about that one thing that's of particular interest regarding this topic is a book called alan wake illuminated coming in at 176 pages this hardcover book was included with the prima official survival guide to alan wake it covers the entire development cycle and gives in-depth explanations as to how the team arrived at a number of decisions concerning design gameplay and narrative there's also a sizable section on cut content i've seen this described online as an allen wake art book but it really goes well beyond what i've seen offered in other video game related art books you can check out our full 4k flip through of the book to see more before the game was released prospective players could go to the xbox website and watch a six episode live action web series called bright falls unlike the live action adaptation of max payne remedy was very much involved in the creation of bright falls and it shows the series follows a journalist named jake fisher who travels to the small town of bright falls washington to interview dr emil hartman about his new book titled the creator's dilemma jake hits a deer while driving into bright falls and this seems to set off a disturbing series of events wherein jake finds himself waking up in all sorts of strange places and losing large chunks of time in the process while the series really only suggests what could be happening to jake it appears that a sort of dark presence is taking over his mind and body causing him to black out and commit acts of violence jake tries to leave bright falls but it doesn't seem like he was able to make it out intact as the show draws to a close we see alan wake and his wife alice driving into bright falls themselves thus giving a perfect segue into the opening of the game the show introduced several characters that players would eventually meet in the game and it did a surprisingly good job of capturing the overall look and atmosphere of alan wake an interview with the director philip vann says that remedy was involved throughout the process and had final approval on all of the work being done this shift into using live action scenes to tell a story would be present in all remedy games going forward it's another example of the studio adding something to its repertoire and continuing to hone and refine it over time the story of alan wake is as twisting and satisfying as the saga of max payne but whereas max payne told the majority of its narrative through the graphic novel cut scenes alan wake tells its story through a number of different devices the game is split into two main types of levels usually separated by day and night daytime scenarios generally present exposition and nighttime scenarios focus more on combat and exploration this sort of clear distinction between gameplay modes is another thing we'll see in other remedy titles going forward allen wake is an everyman not an action hero like max payne he has a modest arsenal of weapons available to him throughout the game but doesn't utilize any special combat abilities like bullet time while enemy encounters aren't always scripted there's always a clear shift into a combat scenario and a clear end to a combat scenario which is signaled by the slow motion death animation of the final enemy in a battle a visual element adapted from max payne but enough about the form let's discuss the actual content of alan wake [Music] the game tells the story of alan wake a famous author who lives in new york city with his wife alice allen is best known for a series of crime thrillers starring the detective alex casey allen wrote six alex casey novels titled alex casey what i can't forget return to sender the things that i want the fall of casey and the sudden stop allen surprised his fans by killing off alex casey in the sudden stop and claimed that he wanted to take his writing in a different direction however two years pass and allen is unable to write anything at all in an attempt to help alan through his writer's block alice wake sets up a trip to bright falls allen is looking forward to just getting away for a while but unbeknownst to him alice has brought along a typewriter and has been in touch with dr emil hartman author of the creator's dilemma and owner of the cauldron lake lodge a sort of mental health facility that caters to artists she hopes to connect allen with dr hartman as we learn throughout the story allen's issues go well beyond writer's block we find that allen has been battling alcoholism and has been prone to violent outbursts having caught several battery charges but avoiding any serious jail time when allen sees that alice brought along a typewriter he becomes enraged he storms out of the cabin the couple has rented for their trip but rushes back in once he hears alice screaming for help he enters the cabin too late finding the alice has fallen from a balcony into cauldron lake allen dives in after her but is unable to find his wife a mysterious woman in black guides allen back into the cabin and sits him down to the typewriter like a man possessed he begins to write a manuscript for a novel called departure as he writes he's guided by the woman in black and over time the words become less and less like his own and more and more like hers but he struggles to stop writing the manuscript begins to become a horror story in a moment of lucidity allen breaks free from the typewriter and rushes to his car he tries to drive away but crashes the vehicle and wakes up with no memory of the previous week spent inside of the cabin he heads for the closest lights that he can see coming from the nearby stuckey's gas station he makes his way through the woods along the way he begins to find scattered pages from the departure manuscript he isn't sure what to make of it he recognizes the writing as his own but still has no memory of typing those words when he finally makes it to the gas station he is met by sheriff sarah breaker breaker can see that alan has clearly suffered some severe physical trauma and she brings him into the station to get checked out by a local doctor sheriff breaker also wants to question him about the gas station because it turns out that its owner carl stuckey has gone missing before the sheriff can really speak to alan he gets a phone call from a man who claims to have kidnapped his wife alice he tells alan to meet him at lover's peak later that night and to bring his new manuscript with him to exchange for alice allen decides to not let the police know about the call from the kidnapper and is soon picked up at the station by his agent barry wheeler allen explains the kidnapping to barry and also claims that he was attacked the previous night by carl stuckey however stucky appeared to him wrapped in shadows and was a raving maniacal version of his former self allen used a flashlight to weaken stucky before shooting him only to have stucky's corpse vanish into thin air as if he had never really been there at all barry obviously doesn't know what to make of all this but he and alan have a very close bond and maybe even more than that allen's writing is an extremely valuable asset to barry the idea of a new manuscript after two years of writer's block helps to keep barry from totally disregarding ellen's story allen heads into the forest after dark making his way toward lover's peak to meet the kidnapper in the forest allen is attacked by more men covered in shadow and is forced to defend himself but upon their deaths these men too disappear just like stucky allen can't be sure if he's become a murderer or if these men are just hallucinations he eventually meets the kidnapper who doesn't have alice with him but alan doesn't have the manuscript either he tells the kidnapper that he needs more time to finish it the kidnapper gives alan two days to get the manuscript together over the next two days allen struggles to find the remaining pages of the manuscript to no avail when he finally meets the kidnapper again the kidnapper confesses that he never actually had alice and was simply trying to get wake to cooperate before he's able to learn more a dark presence taking the form of a tornado violently pulls the kidnapper away and this is seemingly the same dark presence fueling the shadow clad attackers wake too is caught in the shadowy vortex and is tossed into a nearby body of water where he again blacks out only to wake up inside of cauldron lake lodge when he comes too allen is unexpectedly face to face with the lodge's owner dr emile hartman hartman explains to wake that alice died that night at the cabin when she fell from the balcony and that the trauma of the event has caused allen to fall into a series of delusional episodes linked together by bouts of memory loss hartman believes that as a creative individual writing will be an essential part of allen's recovery and he urges alan to get back to his typewriter as soon as possible allen is obviously suspicious but is unable to entirely make sense of everything that he's been experiencing he soon runs into two patients of the lodge tor and odin anderson decades prior the anderson brothers played together in a rock band called the old gods of asgard the brothers own a now abandoned property a large farm that's complete with among other things a distillery outdoor concert area and a lovely farmhouse they tell alan that there's a message for him at the farm they also present alan with one of the manuscript pages allen isn't totally sure what to think of the brothers but he does sense some sort of connection to them that night a power outage hits the lodge and alan sees a chance to escape patients begin to attack the staff at the lodge and hartman is nowhere to be found allen decides to snoop around the lodge before leaving and discovers that hartman was behind the fake kidnapping plot he also finds that hartmann had detained barry wheeler allen realizes that emile hartman is more sinister than he could have ever guessed and eventually finds his way into hartman's office where hartman is hiding out held at gunpoint hartman comes clean about his plans he urges allen to work with him claiming that they can create something powerful together when suddenly the dark presence whisks him away allen and barry are now fully aware of the dark presence and its ability to not only corrupt people but also to manipulate objects creating all manner of obstacles and threats to their escape from the lodge they are able to make it out alive and head toward the anderson farm in pursuit of the only lead that they have left at the moment when they eventually make it to the anderson's farmhouse they discover an old gods of asgard record it seems to allen that this record contains the message that the anderson brothers were referring to the record tells alan that he needs to seek the lady of the light allen is suddenly reminded of a woman that he saw around town named cynthia weaver cynthia carried a lantern in her arms and was fixated on lights and shadows locals wrote her off as a somewhat senile eccentric but given the circumstances allen believes that she could be the key to defeating the dark presence a concept that alan struggles to understand throughout much of the game is the true nature of the manuscript pages the events depicted in the pages appear to be predictions that come true soon after alan reads them as if all of these bizarre happenings in the game were somehow a direct product of alan's lost week inside of the cabin allen and barry decide to spend the night in the farmhouse and as he sleeps allen has a vivid dream that depicts that lost week and he is finally able to remember his time writing the manuscript this newly discovered context along with his mission to find cynthia weaver reinvigorates alan however he wasn't the only person finding these manuscript pages [Music] fbi agent robert nightingale and his partner agent finn were known around the bureau as the righteous brothers the two never broke a rule never had a drink and they had a very strong friendship but over time agent finn seemed to break down he became very afraid of shadows and kept talking about the darkness agent finn eventually disappeared sending his partner into a severe downward spiral agent nightingale became obsessed with understanding this darkness that took over his partner's mind he became dependent on alcohol and was so singularly focused on the darkness that he wound up losing his job undeterred nightingale continued to pose as a federal agent and his investigation eventually brought him to bright falls and in turn to alan wake while on the hunt nightingale was also finding these manuscript pages and was seeing the effect that they were having on the world around him he saw alan wake as the architect of the darkness and as such responsible for the disappearance and likely death of his partner when allen woke up from his dream in the farmhouse he found himself being held at gunpoint by nightingale allen and barry were then brought to the local police station where nightingale and breaker argued over what to do with them before the situation had a chance to escalate the dark presence again interrupted this time taking agent nightingale somewhat bizarrely sheriff breaker didn't seem entirely shocked by this turn of events and immediately trusted alan agreeing to help him and barry reach cynthia weaver the trio take off and after much trial and tribulation eventually reach their destination brightfall's light and power this power plant has become a sort of home base for cynthia weaver when cynthia was a young woman she had an immense unrequited love for a poet named thomas zane thomas was an avid diver and lived in a cabin on cauldron lake he spent a lot of time there with his muse and lover barbara jagger as well as his young assistant emil hartman one day barbara was diving in the lake and drowned thomas tried to go in after her but failed to find her distraught thomas was encouraged by emile hartman to attempt to write her back into reality to tom's delight emile's plan worked barbara returned but she wasn't the same as before she had become possessed by the dark presence a desperate thomas zane tied the possessed corpse of his former lover to a chair and cut out her heart but she would not die ultimately thomas decided to sacrifice himself to destroy this evil version of barbara he put on his diving suit and sent himself and barbara to the bottom of cauldron lake however before doing so he entrusted cynthia weaver with a shoebox thomas zane knew that when he dove into the lake for the last time he and his legacy would essentially be erased from reality he used the same powers that resurrected barbara to create a rule stating that whatever was left in a shoebox would not be erased from reality he knew that cynthia was hopelessly devoted to him and in a way he took advantage of those feelings when leaving the shoebox with her within that shoebox was an ordinary looking old light switch the kind that would make a distinct clicking sound when pressed this clicker would act as a sort of safety mechanism in the event that the dark presence that had possessed barbara jagger were to ever return to reality and that's exactly what happened when alan wake arrived in bright falls cynthia kept the clicker hidden in a place called the well-lit room a room that didn't allow for any significant shadows to exist no places for the dark presence to creep in with the clicker in hand allen departed for cauldron lake for a final confrontation with barbara jagger when he finally reached her he shoved the clicker into the hole where her heart once was and activated it which exploded barber jagger and seemingly freed bright falls from the power of the dark presence as the game comes to a close we can see alice safely emerging from cauldron lake however allen is now stuck in a supernatural location called the dark place cauldron lake is a sort of gateway into the dark place the laws of the dark place allow for true acts of creativity committed within it to have a direct but often unpredictable effect on our reality now that alice is safe allen has tasked himself with finding a way to write himself back into reality and reunite with her [Music] admittedly that's a very truncated version of the events that take place in alan wake as the technological capabilities of computers and game consoles increase so does the complexity of remedy's storytelling like all remedy games the story of alan wake would best be experienced first hand i'm really only giving a recap here in this video for context in terms of gameplay and design alan wake clearly builds on the foundations set by max payne one and two there's the third person camera perspective the way that guns and ammo are treated as plentiful and somewhat disposable rather than having any sort of complex inventory management systems even the fonts used on the game hud are very familiar an upgraded version of the in-game television show trope makes another appearance alongside the addition of an in-game radio show hosted by a local dj named pat mayne the televisions in allen wake present episodes of a twilight zone inspired anthology program called night springs as well as something called the writer in the cabin there are nine episodes of night springs scattered throughout allen wake and much like the tv shows found in max payne 2 were an echo of the story in that game you can find different elements of the alan wake story present in some of these night springs episodes let's watch one together right now are we men dreaming of being butterflies or butterflies that dream of being men such philosophical concerns are by necessity abstract and yet some of us can find concrete proof of the nature of our existence in night springs tonight's episode an absence of creativity [Music] hello martha what did you want to show me oh lydia thank god you're here please it's in the basement oh martha oh that's amazing isn't it just i found it here this morning it's like it isn't there but oh i can't look straight at it yes uh i'm sorry about that how did you get here well i'm trying to work did you put this thing here in a way to be more precise i put everything here but really but what is it oh i guess the temptation is to call it a hole but it's really an absence a profound lack of reality in martha's basement yes i was doing so well too i came up with two old ladies and put something really weird in the basement it was a great start but i'm completely blocked now i can't imagine what i was up to well surely it's just an ordinance is it why did you call your friend here then oh well can you just ignore it no no i couldn't do that it would probably turn into a plot hole might be one already could sink the whole enterprise oh listen ladies not to be rude but i'm really not at all sure where i'm going with this and you're just not helping you should just go back upstairs for a cup of coffee while i try to figure out what i'm up to well if you think that's best maybe i should just stop here or is that too moronic is that too moronic indeed who can tell it's a fine line between the stupid and the sublime [Music] the night springs well the true nature of alan's powers are still somewhat murky even by the end of the game this episode of night springs is an obvious nod to the idea of alan's written word having an effect on reality other ideas explored in these episodes include an interpretation of someone becoming one of the taken what i don't understand what what did i do i just wanted to get a job in the service industry wow you're gonna serve all right [Music] time loops watch out for the drug my my god mark oh please god no linda thanks for the ride mark i'm so glad to be leaving this place what night springs come on linda relax it's not that bad hey what's that up ahead oh god there's someone in the road i think there's been an accident [Music] are you all right oh no linda oh no it was me on the road i wait tell him to watch out for the trunk watch out for the truck murderous doppelgangers but the white shirt is on the dead guy it's plenty red now you won't get away with this do you really think that's in any way relevant to me i had plenty of time to talk to my boy before the cops arrived you know he won't stop screaming am i right you think he's ever gonna be okay i left my mark believe me you you bastard what you gonna shoot me what's the point i'm going to [Music] and you never will don't worry maybe you'll see me again agent maybe in the mirror and quantum physics ladies and gentlemen of the press i am dr barkley colvin and i'm glad so many of you could join me here at the moorcock institute tonight i'm going to give a practical demonstration of the many worlds interpretation as you can see this is a loaded nine millimeter pistol it shall be part of a thought experiment and now a real experiment known as a quantum suicide the inclusion of these live-action elements is very entertaining but they become even more striking when we view the writer in the cabin videos although it's never explicitly stated in the game i believe that these seven videos that you encounter throughout the story give a glimpse into the week that allen spent writing in the cabin while under the spell of barbara jagger on a first playthrough it can be difficult to really piece it all together because there's large chunks of gameplay and narrative in between each encounter you have with these videos to summarize the events of these writer in the cabin videos allen has returned to the cabin after diving into cauldron lake in an attempt to rescue alice he sees that everything outside of the cabin is enveloped in darkness so he decides to stay inside and write he feels a great deal of responsibility as a writer and he knows that his story has to have balance that all the elements need to make sense and that after a certain point a story becomes a living thing and so it can be very difficult to tame he tells himself that he can bring alice back by writing the correct story he also believes that he has an editor with him someone he calls barbara jagger allen begins to feel ill realizing that he can hardly do anything but right at one point he finds a shoebox full of poems by a writer named thomas zane he decides that certain elements of zane's writing can fit into his story but allen is also finding himself increasingly influenced by barbara jagger eventually allen realizes that his editor is a dark presence merely wearing the facade of barbara jagger as a disguise this dark presence has been lying to and manipulating alan into writing the story that it wants the dark presence intends to use allen's power as a writer to break into reality and wreak havoc on our world ellen believes that by writing himself into the story as the protagonist he can save alice and prevent the dark presents from entering reality the final cut scene in the game shows alan still at the typewriter inside of the cabin if you look at the windows you can see that the cabin is still enveloped in darkness earlier in the game we learned that cauldron lake was formed by a volcanic eruption in 1970 an earthquake occurred causing the cabin and the island beneath it to disappear if this were the case then how did alan and alice enter the cabin in the first place that's a question for another time but it's certainly something to consider my focus in this video is to introduce both the official and implied versions of the remedy connected universe but in doing so will inevitably uncover a number of mysteries paradoxes and unanswered questions this is the true magic of the remedy universe the complex mysteries that it presents to those willing to dive deep enough into the spiral overall presentation and the appearance of in-game television shows aren't the only things linking alan wake to the max payne series alan wake is sort of at the center of the remedy connected universe the game acts as a portal between both the past and future of remedy the first clue to all of this appears in the opening minutes of alan wake in the introductory tutorial section of the game allen is in a dream in this dream he struck a hitchhiker with his car and the hitchhiker disappeared when the player first gains control of alan they can choose to walk forward and progress the game however if they turn around and go backwards they will see that coming from the trunk of alan's car is a scattered pile of books the books are all copies of the sudden stop the final alex casey novel as i said earlier allen is famous for writing a series of crime thrillers starring the detective alex casey the cover of this book is extremely similar to the box art for max payne 2 the fall of max payne at this point in alan wake we don't really know anything about alex casey so this could be interpreted as just a subtle reference to remedy's previous game but throughout the story we learn a bit more about alex casey we find a few pages from the sudden stop and discover that alex casey's story is very similar to the story of max payne both characters are involved with a certain femme fatale and both have lost their wife and baby we also see that both characters used dual berettas again this could all be seen as just an easter egg and nothing more than a little in-joke for fans but when we find these sudden stop manuscript pages they aren't read aloud in allen's voice like all the other manuscript pages they are instead read in the voice of max payne as portrayed by actor james mccaffrey this was a late goodbye 13 years after i'd gotten my revenge and it finally caught up with me it had been a long time to bear the pain my blood painted the snow red a gruesome slushy dissolved all the scattered painkillers and leisurely dripped down to the sewer mingling with the bile of the city becoming one with it i can see them now my wife and my baby honey i'm home alex casey is max payne in everything but name and i can only assume that the only reason for that is that remedy no longer holds the rights to the character when viewed through the understanding that alex casey is max payne it leads one to question which plane of reality the max payne games took place in in regards to the remedy connected universe were the things that max payne experienced a direct result of alan's writing are the max paying games just a first person retelling of a fictional story or could they be both now i should note that personally speaking i don't believe alex casey and max payne are the exact same character but rather i think that they are spiritually the same character and that alex casey is a sort of alternate timeline or alternate universe version of the max payne character we'll definitely revisit this idea later on in the video but when pondering the answers one can draw some interesting parallels between alan wake as a creator and sam lake and remedy as creators wanting to do something different for his next book allen surprised fans by killing off alex casey now remedy didn't kill off max payne but they did cut ties with the character in favor of doing something different allen's long period of writer's block can be seen as a sort of parallel to the difficulties that remedy faced in deciding what type of game alan wake should be alan wake had been in production for years before remedy decided that they would be ditching the open world format in favor of a linear story even the names alan wake and sam lake are similar while it's no accident that alan's name can be abbreviated to read as awake it's also worth noting that sam lake is a pen name used by sammy yarvey with yarvey being a finnish word for lake while i assume that a lot of this is just coincidence it's interesting to think of that echo effect that we keep talking about and seeing it break into reality like this it's also very interesting to see that remedy used allen wake to expand on one of the more surreal parts of the max payne games max payne features several sections of gameplay that take place in these dreamlike realms in these sections max is forced to explore the depths of his own psyche confronting some of his deepest fears and weaknesses these areas are a huge part of what allowed max payne to be more than just an action game the idea of turning inward and literally facing the darker parts of your mind is at the core of alan wake and its subsequent dlc episodes and we'll see echoes of that and other remedy games as well it should also be noted that much like max payne made references to norse mythology alan wake contains its share of mythological references as well alfred woden was an allusion to odin and in alan wake odin anderson is an even more overt allusion to that same god along with his brother tor being a clear reference to thor the andersons referred to the dark presence as baba yaga a witch from slavic folklore who lived in a cabin held up by bird's legs the bird leg cabin from the first episode of alan wake sits atop a cauldron lake there's a lot more going on in ellen wake in terms of symbolism and literary references and we'll touch more on some of those later the story of ellen wake is one that's told through many different forms of media we start off with the brightfalls web series which leads directly into the game alan wake included in the steam edition of the game are two comics titled psychothriller and night springs in allen wake dr emil hartman is swept away by the dark presence and is never seen again in the game the psycho thriller comic lets us know that dr emil hartman survived the blackout at cauldron lake lodge and also gives a few more bits of information that will be crucial to people trying to piece together some of the deeper mysteries of the remedy connected universe the night springs comic introduces us to frank breaker who is the father of sheriff sarah breaker when sheriff breaker becomes aware of the dark presence and decides to help alan and barry reach the lady of the light she tasks barry with making phone calls to some people that she believes can help with the situation near the top of that list is frank breaker and the night springs comic shows what happens when he's called into action it also suggests that the breaker family isn't totally unfamiliar with the supernatural which is another thread that we'll follow up on later in this video alan wake was followed by two dlc expansions or special episodes if you will titled the signal and the writer these two stories take place directly after the events of alan wake allen is stuck in the dark place and is doing all he can to figure out the rules of this realm that he finds himself in he's not entirely alone though throughout alan wake and the accompanying dlc episodes allen is regularly visited by the voice of the poet thomas zane throughout the game this voice which initially takes the form of a guiding light eventually reveals himself to be a man in an old-timey diving suit zayn has also been cast into the dark place and while his intentions aren't always clear he does appear to pass on what knowledge he's gained to help alan survive it's also interesting to note that thomas zane is voiced by james mccaffrey the same voice actor who portrayed max payne this idea of a poet named tom who communicates with the protagonist through some supernatural means is very reminiscent of true tom rimer from remedy's first game death rally well i don't think there's any canonical connection between the games or the characters this is another example of an idea echoing throughout different remedy titles the dlc episodes serve as a sort of training ground for alan he begins to learn the ins and outs of the dark place after rescuing alice and by the end of the dlc's he's ready to write a new manuscript titled return the special edition of alan wake is accompanied by a book called the allen wake files this book was written by a man named clay stewart at some point around 2010 clay started having what he believed to be a series of shared dreams with alan wake one of these dreams is actually presented in the opening tutorial section of the game allen briefly meets clay before the hitchhiker that allen struck with his car takes clay out with an axe one could be forgiven for forgetting this seemingly inconsequential character but it's important to remember that very little in a remedy game is actually inconsequential or unrelated to the greater narrative feeling drawn to bright falls clay arrives there just days after the events of the game he stays in a motel room that was previously used by former fbi agent robert nightingale clay opens up a vent in the room and happens upon the field notes taken by nightingale allen also passes through this room as well in the game and keen eyed players can see the vent that at the time is still holding nightingale's notes in clay's book the ellen wake files we can find these field notes some selections of alan wake's writing a copy of the creator's dilemma by emile hartman and some historical information on bright falls and cauldron lake it's a really incredible companion piece and it goes to show how far remedy is willing to go when it comes to world building two years after the release of alan wake alan wake's american nightmare launched on the xbox live arcade service and the game takes place two years after the events of the game allen wake in fact it seems that most remedy games take place in the year that they are released and the characters live in age in real time with us allen is much more experienced with the rules of the dark place as is shown by his confidence and his use of some new weaponry this time around the manuscript takes the form of a script for the show night springs in this script allen is in a confrontation with his evil doppelganger named mr scratch however that's pronounced mr mr scratch has broken into reality while allen is stuck in the dark place he plans to eventually kill alice and everyone else close to allen but he wants to take his time and enjoy it he sadistically plans to at first tease his presence and then eventually reveal himself fully to alice pretending for a time to be alan wake alice will enjoy the reunion until mr scratch decides that it's time to strike this game itself is in many ways a simplified version of ellen wake with a more of a focus on arcade style combat with a relatively straightforward narrative from the dark place allen can find locations in our reality where the border between dimensions is a bit more thin and malleable and through those spots he's able to manifest things from his writings just like how he wrote himself into the role of the protagonist of departure in the first game this time around he's written himself into an episode of night springs we learn that when he crosses into his writings he loses memory of what he's written and must operate on instinct trusting that he'll make the right choices to achieve his desired outcome however if he does not do everything that needs to be done in a very particular way he'll eventually find himself back at the top of a seemingly endless time loop the rules of the dark place dictate that the most minut details can have unforeseen consequences on how acts of creation interact with our reality it's not only about the words that are written but also what those words imply there can be many unintentional consequences of creating while using the power of the dark place as was illustrated when thomas zane manifested an evil version of his dead lover barbara jagger american nightmare sees alan wake completing the time loop three times before piecing together the puzzle in such a way that finally allows him to defeat mr scratch and reunite with alice does this mean that alan escaped the dark place well unfortunately not his reunion with alice is just a projection but those events of the game are an endeavor that supply allen with more experience pushing him closer to eventually being able to right his escape while american nightmare is nowhere near in-depth as alan wake the game provides a great amount of information on the mechanics of the dark place as well as giving us a glimpse into what's been going on in reality during allen's absence alice wake has continued to pursue her work as a photographer and at the suggestion of a friend she started to dabble in film as well barry wheeler wound up becoming the manager of old gods of asgard and is out on tour with the band at the start of the game this idea of a time loop was explored in one of the episodes of night springs that was featured in the first alan wake game another episode of night springs explored the idea of quantum physics both of those ideas would be crucial to the plot of remedy's next major title 2016's quantum break but before we get there let's make a couple of pit stops 2012 was an eventful year for remedy in addition to alan wake's american nightmare the year also saw the long-anticipated release of alan wake for the pc 2012 also brought about the release of max payne 3. although remedy had officially parted ways with the character long before 2012 they still served as consultants on the game in addition to that max payne 3 was accompanied by a series of comics co-written by rockstar's dan hauser and remedies sam lake the comics serve to link the events of the first two games to the third title and also give a revealing look to max's life before the events of the first game although i personally believe that in the canon of the remedy connected universe max payne has basically been retconned by alex casey we can still interpret the continued story of max payne as a branching path in the remedy universe it's another reality not legally an official part of the remedy connected universe but it's not completely removed either i can't afford to get too deeply into this in this video but rockstar games have their own connected universe and there are points in that universe that brush right up against the remedy universe to simply dismiss max payne 3 as some non-canonical max payne story would be to disregard all the other connections there are for us to explore when it comes to the relationship between max payne alex casey and games like max payne 3 or quantum break that don't officially and legally fit into the remedy connected universe cannon i think it's best to think of things this way we'll say there's many worlds they're side by side on top of each other some worlds are inside of others in one world there's a writer who wrote a story about a cop and in another world the cop was a real person we'll continue to explore this theme as the video goes on another thing that happened in 2012 was that a woman named samantha wells finally fulfilled her dream of buying an old house to renovate the house of her dreams the house was located in a town called ordinary in the state of maine this isn't the first time that we've heard of ordinary when the old gods of asgard made a return in alan wake's american nightmare they were promoting a new single called balance slays the demon a bit of backward speech in the song states it will happen again in another town a town called ordinary samantha started up a blog spot to document the house's renovation process the attic of the house was filled with things left by the previous owner and samantha was thrilled to find a shoe box that contained some photographs and type written poems samantha said that the photos were likely taken in the 60s or 70s now in the context of this video it might be obvious that these are photos of thomas zane and barbara jagger and that the poems were written by thomas zane when zayn made the shoebox rule that we discussed earlier he didn't specify that there was only one shoe box it's unclear how many thomas zane related shoe boxes there are but we can find a few of them in the remedy universe and there's evidence to suggest that literally any shoebox can be subject to the rule that thomas zane set the blog is definitely worth exploring in full as it offers a great deal of insight into the relationship between thomas zane and emil hartman the other detail from the blog that i'll mention here is a dream that samantha has in which federal agents with the letters awe on their badges come to her home at night to confiscate the shoebox it would take a number of years for anyone outside of remedy to understand the significance of that dream but the letters awe and the town of ordinary would also show up in remedy's next game quantum break but before we get to quantum break we're going to make one more detour here and discuss remedy's mobile offerings remedy's first game death rally was ported to windows in 2009 and in 2012 a full-on remake of the game was released on windows as well as android and ios in general the remake is pretty faithful to the original and also has a cameo from barry wheeler [Music] it's nothing remarkable but it's a lot of fun and for the record i don't believe that the events of death rally are necessarily canon in the remedy connected universe however the existence of the game definitely is as is evidenced by posters for death rally appearing in multiple remedy titles over the years in 2014 remedy developed a free to play mobile game called agents of storm that was published by flair games the servers were online for three years before shutting down i see this as a relatively overlooked part of remedy's history as a developer and i really struggled to find much info on the game some writings are available as well as a bit of gameplay footage as far as i can tell the game has no direct connections or references to any other remedy games but since i can't actually find a copy of the game to try for myself i can't one hundred percent confirm this [Music] hey guys i'm sean ashmore and this is quantum break quantum break is an epic story it's a story about a world in crisis and it's really a story about destiny it's exciting as an actor to be a part of a game that has a focus on character and performance not only do you do the character preparation and study you also have to be completely digitally scanned and placed into a video game having a virtual body essentially is completely a foreign sort of technique for me i think it's pushing my boundaries where is he where's my brother in my short time within the remedy fan community it seems like quantum break is a bit of a black sheep i think that this is in large part due to the fact that quantum break came about because remedy was unable to deliver a sequel to alan wake this was addressed directly by sam lake in a video that promised us that the writer would eventually return now going back to alan wake up wake is really dear to me and to everyone at remedy we knew from the beginning that that when wake ends up in the dark place getting out from there is going to be a long hellish journey uh and a hard struggle and i guess that that where we are now is fiction becoming reality we definitely want to keep on working on alan wake i definitely want to create something new for alan wake when the time is right you see alan wake was published by microsoft it's a cult classic but the game really didn't sell very well when it was first released when remedy came to microsoft with a pitch for ellen wake 2 a game that would combine a traditional video game experience with a live action show microsoft was intrigued however they didn't want another alan wake game some of the basic ideas for allen wake 2 were then shifted to an entirely new ip one that would be owned by microsoft it also seems that remedy attempted to make a more mainstream aaa type title with quantum break and in creating a game that attempted to appeal to a wider and more general audience they made some decisions that seemed to have turned off some of the fans who came on board through alan wake and max payne that said the game still has a very strong following and despite being owned by microsoft and not being able to officially and legally be a part of the remedy connected universe quantum break is still crucial in understanding some of the deeper mysteries of the remedy connected universe i struggle to really summarize the game because it's an extremely dense story while alan wake contained a sizable cast of characters all with their own unique backstories and motivations a great deal of their contributions to the main story of the game appear on screen alan wake explored the idea of an alternate dimension but quantum break presents multiple timelines and places being experienced by multiple characters so many things that happen in the story and affect the main narrative aren't actually witnessed by the player or the protagonist of the game quantum break tells the story of brothers jack and william joyce to put things very simply william joyce invented a time machine his work was expanded upon by a man named paul serene joyce's time machine somehow causes a fracture in time which threatens to end time as we know it in a horrific and destructive manner william essentially believes that this fracture can be repaired and paul believes that it's unstoppable jack is caught in the middle of this conflict both jack joyce and paul serene have been exposed to cronon radiation which is a sort of effect of the time machine and this radiation exposure gives them both the power to manipulate time to be able to read between the lines of reality and see things that no one else can see it's an extremely complex story it's a full game that's broken up by five live action episodes of a quantum break tv show with each episode coming in at a tv half hour of around 25 minutes choices that you make in the game at certain junction points will have a direct effect on the story going forward both in the game and in the show that's another reason why it's difficult for me to really recap this one every person who plays this game has the potential to have their own unique experience different from many other people who also played the game paul serene uses his experiences with time travel to build an enormous corporation called monarch the prime purpose of which is to enact the lifeboat protocol while serene believes that the break in time is inevitable he also believes that a small number of people can be protected in a sort of lifeboat anyone outside of the lifeboat is doomed but those within the lifeboat using their minds and monarch's resources will be tasked with figuring out how to rebuild society william joyce doesn't totally agree with serene's assessment of the situation and actually prepared something called the countermeasure which essentially can be used to repair the fracture while the game does paint paul serene as the antagonist it also goes a long way to show his side of the story and he's not an entirely unsympathetic character the player actually takes control of serene between episodes and it's these junction points that allow the player to explore the branching paths of the story this was the first opportunity for players to take control of a secondary character in a remedy game since playing as mona sacks for some missions in max payne 2. there actually was more of this planned in quantum break but it didn't make the final cut of the game players would have occasionally taken on the role of beth wilder a monarch agent who is sympathetic to jack's efforts and who plays a large role in helping him to eventually defeat paul serene i know this seems really rushed after the in-depth breakdowns i've given of all the other remedy games so far but the basic beats of the story are quite simple it's a panicked sort of back and forth between the joyces and serene but that part of the narrative doesn't really break any new ground it's heroes versus the villain even if that villain turns out to be more complicated and conflicted rather than pure evil the complexity of the narrative really comes through the choices that the player makes the developments taking place in the live action segments the extensive in-game lore and understanding the greater effects that the time machine has had on the world of quantum break jack joyce and paul serene aren't the only people who have been changed by cronon radiation and while the story leaves a few loose ends on the topic it suggests that some characters are even more powerful than joyce or serene and have a more nuanced understanding of how to shift through time quantum break is a wonderful story but i do feel that there are some growing pains evident in the game while alan wake was accompanied by a web series the entirety of bright falls is just a bit longer than a single episode of the quantum break series characters from the game appear briefly in the show and characters from the show appear briefly in the game but the two largely feel like parallel narratives that could exist entirely separate from one another they do intertwine but the points where they intersect never feel crucial to either experience at least in my opinion much like alan wake the game is broken up into distinct sections of combat and exploration these exploration sections also feature light platforming and some puzzle solving that has the player using their time manipulation abilities to pass different obstacles well i don't mean to sound overly critical of this game for me the scope of the gameplay didn't quite line up with how massive of a story was being presented to me many of the puzzles that i mentioned basically boiled down to fancy quick time events quantum break expands on the gameplay of alan wake offering a lot more options when it comes to combat and overall mobility of the character but it also expands on the amount of exposition and information presented to the player which is a lot considering how dense of a story ellen wake tells in addition to the bright falls show alan wake was accompanied by several books as well as the dlc episodes these experiences are totally optional and allen wake players can still enjoy the game without even knowing that these other materials exist in the case of quantum break all of the story was crammed into the game itself which i honestly found to be overwhelming on my first playthrough quantum break is also the only remedy shooter that doesn't allow you to hip fire which is to say you have to hold down the left trigger and aim your gun to fire rather than being able to freely fire as you move around the game has a somewhat awkward snap cover system as well the player unlocks a variety of powers to aid them in combat but fairly early on in the game you begin to encounter scenarios where the majority of enemies are immune to those powers all of these complaints that i'm presenting were addressed in remedy's next game control and that's why i think there are some growing pains evident in quantum break the game is extremely ambitious but i don't think that it hits every mark that it aims for which i believe is why you'll consistently see it ranking lower than other remedy titles when fans discuss it the story of the game is expanded upon in the novelization quantum break zero state written by cam rogers rogers is someone who worked at remedy and had a hand in the early development of quantum break and so he knew the world very intimately the forward of the book is written by sam lake and it talks about the general uselessness of adapting a video game to a novel he goes on to say that this book aims to break free of those traps to create something that enriches the overall experience and stands on its own as a compelling work of literature the forward also mentions something that i've brought up several times in this video sam lake says i love the idea of echoes and twisted mirrors he says that the in-game television shows in max payne and alan wake were echoes of the stories in those games echo was the best word that i could come up with to describe what i saw at play in these remedy games and seeing sam lake use that same terminology was honestly very validating for me the book itself is not an official part of the remedy connected universe sam like states in the foreword that the book is not canon but then goes on to say in an experience where the player gets to make choices and shape the story in a multiverse what isn't canon i do believe that that line of thinking is very helpful in understanding what i'm trying to get across in this video alan wake also got the novelization treatment but unfortunately while it's not a bad book it's a pretty straightforward retelling of the events of ellen wake that novel is not considered canon either but it's still a fun read especially for fans of ellen wake as i said earlier quantum break is owned by microsoft and up until the summer of 2019 microsoft also held the publishing rights to ellen wake in july of that year one month before the release of control it was announced that the publishing rights to alan wake had reverted back to remedy that would mean that for the first time since max payne remedy would have full control of two properties and could begin to build their connected universe in an official way the prospect of this was speculated about by fans but one year later in august of 2020 remedy put out a statement that said you know we'd love to put easter eggs into our games but what if some of them were more than easter eggs what if it's all connected this announcement came one day after the release of the trailer for the awe expansion for control a dlc that would establish an undeniable link between allen wake and control we've already explored how remedy was able to work around copyright issues and create a sort of stand-in for max payne through alex casey but where does quantum break fit into this connected universe as i've said there is an official remedy connected universe but there's also a sort of unofficial or implied remedy universe the statement put out in august of 2020 acknowledges that some of the links we find between games are merely just easter eggs there's references little in jokes here and there things that acknowledge the remedy catalog but don't necessarily work to weave the connected universe quantum break is the first full-scale remedy game to be released since alan wake first started to make the idea of a remedy connected universe apparent to players since remedy doesn't have the rights to quantum break it can't officially be a part of the connected universe but it is still full of things that link it to the connected universe however it does seem like the majority of these things are merely easter eggs and shouldn't be considered canonical when exploring the links between alan wake control and future remedy games yet to come that said it does seem like some canonical information regarding the connected universe can be found within quantum break the fact that remedy doesn't own quantum break is why this is all so confusing but it's still a lot of fun to dig through one of the first connections to the larger remedy universe is found very early on in quantum break you approach a television much like you did in the three previous remedy games and on that television this plays [Music] it's not a lake it's an ocean he's been gone for five years dark matter and dark energy constitute over 95 of our universe or just a speck of light floating in an endless ocean of darkness [Applause] every story finds its writer [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] all of us have two faces the one we wear for all to see and the face that lies beneath in the [Music] dark there's a lot to break down here we see sam lake and an unidentified female actress portraying fbi agents we see ellen wake and then as the video goes on we see that the character sam lake is playing is none other than alex casey who may have graduated from the nypd at some point the video isn't an official trailer for the next ellen wake game but it has been confirmed that the video explores some of the themes and ideas that sam like and remedy would like to touch on in a future allen wake game again we know that an official canonical connected universe does exist but when discussing quantum break in particular i think it's helpful to call back to sam lake's words in the forward of the quantum break novel in a multiverse what isn't canon for more insight let's reference this 2016 pc gamer interview with sam lake having followed remedy since max payne it's easy to see that you love to reference yourselves in your own games and reference your other games it can't be a coincidence that allen way crimes with quantum break rhymes with sam lake right can you talk about how that started why you like those sort of in jokes a lot of it is a joke and i kind of feel that to me telling stories and games in creating immersive believable worlds there is room for all kinds of different things in there and that to me is the richness for telling stories with games that there can be optional content exploration content and different tones as well without breaking the overall style and theme you can still enter all kinds of things in there and in a way also use them as commentary and echoes and twisted mirrors to the primary story so the humor aspect is part of it but the other side of it is i'm a big fan of post-modern literature and the cool thing about that is that self-referential material and different layers in there and kind of a game we play on the story side as well is a big part that excites me that's an interesting thing to me it feels obviously games are about you know playing games so it somehow feels very natural and fits very well in a game that's kind of the starting point of it but it's also just having fun with it in a way kind of having this multiverse aspect to it if we look at alan wake very definitely we do have echoes of their version of max payne in there through alan wake's writing it is self-referential but then again it does add a dimension that you understand and it adds to the character of alan wake in an understandable way yeah it is something that i love and to me it's important that we have these aspects in a 2015 interview sam lake did say definitively that alan wake and quantum break don't take place in the same universe and i think i've belabored that point here but i'm doing so because while they may not take place in the same universe ellen wake does exist in some way in the universe of quantum break at one point in the game you can see that a person is playing ellen wake on their pc the player can also come across a copy of the sudden stop by ellen wake at the beginning of the game paul serene is wearing a shirt featuring the logo of a band called stonecrow we find that stonecrow is an old gods of asgard tribute band the back of the shirt invites you to witness the stepchildren of the elder god on their 2016 balance tour this is an obvious nod to balance slays the demon and we can see that the first stop on the tour is bright falls washington later on in the game jack's brother william is wearing an old gods of asgard shirt william can also be seen wearing a night springs shirt at one point in the game like other remedy games before it quantum break uses all sorts of familiar mediums to offer optional lore and information to the player at one point the player comes across a tv playing night springs however the announcer for the show has gone missing and so tryouts must be held to find a replacement at another point in the game jack overhears two security guards who are working overtime shifts one asks the other what he's going to do with the surplus cash and the other guard replies that he's going to buy a tanning bed and live in it when asked what he means the guard says that it's a reference that the other man just wouldn't get that line is a reference to ellen wake there's a scene where an exasperated barry wheeler says that when his adventure with alan wake is all over he's going to have to buy him a tanning bed that barry will then live inside of so we can see that the characters of quantum break are aware of ellen wake as a video game but we also see elements of ellen's reality existing in the reality of quantum break should we overthink this no it's clear that these references to ellen wake are the sort of easter eggs that we discussed earlier and not anything that should be seen as hard evidence of the connected universe especially since the connected universe wasn't announced for several years after the release of quantum break but there are a few more things to discuss not long after finding that ellen wake video the player can find this chalkboard in a classroom this was really intriguing to me when i first found it i read over this thing a dozen times just trying to decipher it not knowing that several elements of it wouldn't make sense to players for several years until they were expanded upon in control for a full analysis of this chalkboard i'd like to direct you to gaming university's video on it which i'll link down below in the description and comments but to briefly summarize it the chalkboard appears to be from a lecture on alan wake the board presents information and questions regarding allen's descent into the dark place there are two things here that i want to mention in particular on the far right side of the board we see this departure initiation return departure is the name of the manuscript in the first allen wake game return is the name of the manuscript that allen begins at the end of the dlc episodes the one that will hopefully bring him back into reality we see that he started writing it at the end of the second dlc but two years later in american nightmare he's still in the dark place so obviously he failed to escape one can assume he failed because he skipped the second step initiation this idea of doing things in a particular order is explored in alan wake's american nightmare and the cycle of departure initiation return is a clear reference to the concept of the hero's journey or the monomyth this is a concept that has been discussed and studied by many people throughout history and one notable scholar on the topic was joseph campbell campbell describes the monomyth as having 17 stages and these stages are divided into three sections or acts i'm going to read this directly from wikipedia in part because i think it's a good summary of the concept but also because i get a kick out of just how blatant of a link there is between the story of ellen wake and the writings of joseph campbell in the departure narrative the hero or protagonist lives in the ordinary world and receives a call to go on an adventure the hero is reluctant to follow the call but is helped by a mentor figure the initiation section begins with the hero then traversing the threshold to an unknown or special world where he faces tasks or trials either alone or with the assistance of helpers the hero eventually reaches the innermost cave or the central crisis of his adventure where he must undergo the ordeal where he overcomes the main obstacle or enemy undergoing apotheosis and gaining his reward a treasure or elixir the hero then must return to the ordinary world with his reward he may be pursued by the guardians of the special world or he may be reluctant to return and may be rescued or forced to return by intervention from the outside in the return section the hero again traverses the threshold between the worlds returning to the ordinary world with the treasure or elixir he gained which he may now use for the benefit of his fellow man the hero himself is transformed by the adventure and gains wisdom or spiritual power over both worlds taking what we've discussed so far a lot of that should sound very familiar and while we haven't yet discussed control if you've played control you may be able to see where the events of the game and its awe expansion fit into all of this speaking of awe that's the other thing i want to point out on the chalkboard here found on the lower left corner awe alan wake experience altered world events this house of dreams clues the letters awe appear throughout the world of quantum break in the form of graffiti we were first introduced to the letters awe in the house of dreams blog in what samantha believes to be a dream federal agents whose badges read awe come to samantha's house seeking the shoe box full of thomas zane poems that she found in her attic samantha's house is an ordinary mane ordinary is listed in quantum break as one of the places that experienced the effect of a quantum ripple all of these bits of information would become more significant upon the release of remedy's next game 2019's control [Music] august 4th 1964 bureau agents discovered the oldest house investigating an altered world event case in new york city subway tunnels it's a place of power from the outside it looks like an ordinary building a brutalist skyscraper but inside it breaks the laws of our reality unstable mad shifting there are rooms in the building where other dimensions leak in we call these rooms thresholds there is a connection between our minds and the unknown often hostile forces intruding on our world these forces gravitate toward everyday objects a gun a television a house with a reputation of being haunted so somehow we affect these events we're holding the key but we don't have a clue on how to use it [Music] we're dealing with dangers unknown forces here what's the cause and what's the effect are we the starting point or just a necessary evil in this we're on a mission to find answers to these questions or die trying this is zachariah trench the director of the federal bureau of control as a game control really builds a lot on what was offered in quantum break combat is tighter and more focused with an increase in the number and variety of abilities on offer to the player lore and narrative are still presented through a number of different mediums although some narrative bits specifically the live action videos found throughout the game are initially presented to players in a shortened form allowing for casual players to quickly get any crucial information that the videos may present once a player encounters a video they can access it again from a menu and watch it in full these videos are never more than a minute or too long but the full versions offer a lot to players who are excited to dig deeper into the mysteries of control the video lore segments in control have a style that feels like a very refined mashup of both the tv shows and the spoken word narration that players would find in max payne and alan wake this effect is heightened by the fact that the voice actors for both max payne and alan wake have prominent roles in control the player takes on the role of jesse faden when she was a child jessie and her brother dylan lived in the town of ordinary the two would sometimes play with their friends in a local landfill one day at the landfill they found a magical slide projector with a small collection of slides when placed into the slide projector these slides would open up portals to other dimensions the children began to explore these dimensions or slidescapes and it all seemed harmless enough at first in one of the slidescapes jessie and her brother made contact with a seemingly friendly entity that they named polaris over time things got out of hand entities from inside of the other dimensions began to negatively affect reality all of the adults in ordinary disappeared one day and some of the town's children had been turned violent by an entity called the not mother with polaris help jessie and dylan were able to turn off the slide projector they burned all of the slides except for the slide that polaris came from what happened in ordinary with the slide projector is called an altered world event or an awe altered world events and other paranatural phenomena are investigated by a branch of the us government known as the federal bureau of control fbc agents arrived in ordinary shortly after the slide projector was turned off they confiscated the projector and its remaining slide and attempted to detain both jesse and dylan faden jesse was able to escape but dylan was taken by the fbc to their headquarters in new york city the bureau operates out of a building called the oldest house the game opens up 17 years after the ordinary awe jesse with the help of polaris who she has a sort of telepathic connection to has finally found the fbc headquarters jesse spent the previous 17 years trying to find out what happened to her brother dylan and it appears that she's finally about to get some answers the oldest house itself is a paranatural phenomenon a constantly shifting place that contains all sorts of mysteries as i said before the fbc investigates the paranatural paranatural meaning anything that violates the known laws of nature and reality they work to contain study and ultimately control these elements individuals with paranatural abilities are called para utilitarians objects that have paranatural connections are either altered items or objects of power an altered item has been touched by the paranatural in some way and as such will have unique and sometimes dangerous qualities some might recognize these items as being possessed not entirely different from the possessed objects that we encountered in alan wake objects of power are different than that and that they are connected to the astral plane the astral plane is a complex and mysterious dimension one that the fbc is still struggling to fully understand alan wake mentions that the dark places full of different entities some of which have made attempts to enter reality the dark presence that he battles is just one of those entities like the dark place the astral plane is also inhabited by entities one of these entities takes the form of a large black pyramid and is called the board the board has a very unique connection to the fbc and its use of objects of power through rituals that take place in the astral plane the board can help certain para utilitarians bind to objects of power once the ritual is done the peri-utilitarian can then utilize the powers attached to that object of power well it's unclear to many how the board operates and whether or not it's a collection of entities or just one being the board uses one of these binding rituals to appoint the director of the fbc the director ritual has to do with the service weapon an object of power that generally takes the shape of a handgun when jesse arrives at the oldest house she is met by a janitor named ati auntie directs jessie to the director's office she walks in to find the corpse of recently deceased former fbc director zachariah trench who apparently suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head she is compelled to pick up the gun that lies next to trench's body and is sent to the astral plane to partake in a binding ritual as the gun that she picked up is the aforementioned service weapon upon successful completion of the ritual the board declares that jesse is the new director of the fbc the game's lore indicates that failure to complete the binding ritual does result in the immediate death of the person who picked up the weapon jesse's accomplishment here is similar to having been able to pull excalibur from its stone and it sets her on her hero's journey as she exits the office she is attacked by human-like creatures these are the game's main enemies former fbc employees who have been corrupted by a force known as the hiss well to a degree they do resemble the taken from ellen wake the hiss seems to mutate individuals in all sorts of horrifying ways after taking on a few more his corrupted individuals jesse finds and cleanses a control point the game doesn't immediately explain this but control points are essentially points in the oldest house that help the building to maintain stability they're sort of one part talisman and one part science and were created in the 1960s by former head of research dr theodore ash jr an acting director can cleanse control points and clean control points will help to prevent unexpected shifts in the house without these control points the house would become a never-ending labyrinth that would eventually swallow up everyone inside of it control points are also used as tethers for the board to connect to the oldest house in terms of gameplay that means that the player can use these spots to regenerate health craft different mods and upgrades change outfits take on board specific side missions and fast travel to other control points jesse eventually finds some fbc employees who have not been affected by the hiss and among them is emily pope who is the acting head of research at the fbc emily is surprised by jesse's ability to cleanse the hiss from the control points and is even more surprised to learn that jesse is able to teleport between control points which is something that no previous fbc director had been able to do the reason that emily and the other survivors haven't been corrupted by the hiss is because they are wearing devices called hadron resonance amplifiers or hras think of them as life jackets to be worn as the building is flooded by the hiss resonance these devices were developed and distributed by the most recent head of research at the bureau dr casper darling who has since gone missing something within jessie is resisting the hiss corruption so she doesn't need to wear an hra to stay safe emily pope tells jesse about an object of power called the hotline a telephone which when bound to the director allows them to communicate directly with the board jesse heads out to find the hotline and this is where the game really picks up from here on out control is sort of an open world game which is something that remedy attempted with early builds of alan wake the main quest is fairly linear but there are a number of side missions available to the player as well that work to flesh out the fbc the oldest house and its current inhabitants the situation with the hiss put the oldest house under lockdown so no one is able to enter or exit the building until the hiss has been eradicated if the hiss were to escape the oldest house and infect the world it'd be catastrophic despite the lockdown jesse does travel to the astral plane from time to time and we get a few glimpses of other dimensions as well throughout the story jessie attempts to restore order to the oldest house but along the way she finds that a large amount of the staff and sector heads have been corrupted by the hiss while jesse is able to cleanse the hiss from control points it seems that attempting to cleanse the hiss from people is possibly fatal we see jesse try to cleanse a his corrupted employee of the fbc and they disappear very similar to the way the taken would disappear when defeated by alan wake exactly what it is that happens to defeated taken or his corrupted individuals is never really explained in either game their bodies simply disappear and their fate is never really made clear to the players or the player character however it's an interesting contrast to what happens to the enemies in max payne a game where the protagonist is essentially a mass murderer jesse does eventually reunite with dylan who has been held at the oldest house since the fbc first detained him unfortunately dylan has also been corrupted by the hiss the plot of control takes many twists and turns which at this point should be expected from a remedy game while the main storyline concerns jessie fulfilling her duties as director and clearing out the hiss the game uses all of the familiar storytelling tools we've seen in previous games to greatly expand on the history of the fbc the bureau has been around for a long time and through documents audio and video recordings conversations and missions we can learn a lot about the staff the power dynamics politics struggles origins and mysteries of the bureau and the oldest house we'd be here for days if i got too deep into all of that so let's just briefly summarize the events of the game before explaining how control fits into the remedy connected universe to begin to understand the story of control you need to understand that the hiss is a resonance resonance is the term that the bureau uses to refer to paranatural energies and their frequencies when the hiss corrupts an individual they begin chanting a sort of incantation as more and more corrupted individuals repeat this chant the resonance of the hiss grows louder and stronger after bringing the slide projector back to the oldest house after the awe event in ordinary former director zachariah trench and the former head of research dr casper darling who are portrayed by james mccaffrey and matthew peretta respectively began organizing expeditions into the one remaining slide which they called slidescape 36. they became aware of a powerful resonance in the sidescape and began to search for the source of it during one of these expeditions director trench unknowingly came into contact with the hiss resonance and it slowly started to manifest itself inside of him at the time he described it as a sound like a needle drilling in cutting through his containment suit reverberating in the base of his skull his whole being dr darling ran tests on trench but couldn't find anything amiss on top of this darling and all the research team didn't find evidence of any other resonances aside from the one that they were searching for so trench's concerns were dismissed while they were unable to find the source of the resonance inside of slidescape 36 they did find an enormous structure that acted as a sort of host or catalyst for the resonance casper darling named it hadron due to its shape and it was brought back to the oldest house to be examined the bureau had never encountered anything as powerful as the hedron resonance and darling became obsessed with it and the possibilities of what it could do for the bureau all the while tensions between trench and darling were on the rise trench was becoming more and more paranoid and suspicious of both darling and heteron this was due to the fact the trench was becoming corrupted by the hiss resonance when the fbc collected the slide projector from ordinary it was believed that sidescape 36 was the only slide left however trench secretly found and kept the burnt remains of one of the other slides the hiss resonance inside of trench was making him fearful of hedron and he was eventually compelled to take the slide projector and use the burnt slide to fully welcome the his resonance into the oldest house although we never really get the full picture it's implied that the hedron resonance is at war with the hiss resonance it seems that the hedron resonance is capable of pushing back or drowning out the hiss resonance the hedron resonance was somehow aware of what was brewing inside of trench and it communicated this to dr darling hederon then instructed darling on how to create the hras as we discussed earlier the hras keep people from becoming corrupted by the hiss this is because the hras take the hedron resonance and amplify it around the people who are wearing them we also discussed earlier that jesse doesn't need an hra this is because polaris and hedron share the same resonance as long as jessie is connected to polaris the resonance will protect her from the hiss if this seems a bit confusing that's because it is the true nature of polaris and hedron are intentionally left a bit murky to the player and it's unclear if hadron and polaris are separate entities bound by a shared resonance or if the resonance is just one entity that can take multiple forms or manifest itself in different hosts regardless it's through her connection to polaris that jessie is eventually able to once again turn off the slide projector and stop the hiss invasion she attempts to cleanse her brother dylan of the hiss but the trauma of the event leaves him in a coma at the end of the game jessie is feeling more confident in her role as director and is working to rid the last of the hiss from the oldest house the game does leave a few loose ends such as the whereabouts of dr darling and the fate of dylan faden but i suspect that these things will be addressed in a future control game control received two dlc expansions titled awe and the foundation the foundation dlc brings jesse to the actual foundation of the oldest house this expansion introduces a few new mechanics that are specific to the foundation area and it greatly expands on the history of the fbc and the oldest house it also offers us more insight into how the board works and just who the board might actually be a full breakdown of the fbc's history and relationship to the board and the oldest house would take more time than we have here in this video but it's a very intriguing topic and a great example of remedy's ability to create compelling worlds the awe dlc which stands for altered world event or as some people have suggested the alan wake expansion deals with the fbc's investigation into what happened in bright falls back in 2010 although control's base game contained a few nods to alan wake here and there this dlc is where the floodgates really open up throughout control's campaign jesse will visit a location called the ocean view motel the exact nature of this location like many things in control isn't totally made clear to us however we do know that the motel acts as a sort of hub with different doors in the building leading to different dimensions in the motel there's a hallway with six doors and each of these doors bear a different symbol before jesse became the director the bureau had only ever been able to open one of these doors it was documented that at some point someone slipped a piece of paper into the hallway from underneath the door with a spiral symbol this page was identified as an altered item and brought back to the fbc altered items are generally stored in a section of the oldest house called the panopticon it's essentially a large prison for altered items jesse can encounter this page along with some documents summarizing its features one document reads type written page ai 83-ke no unique procedures required a standard letter size type written page with minor water damage the page is full of text but apart from the top seven lines all the rest has been violently scratched out only a few individual words and phrases can be made out the page emits a dim glow in the dark when the text is red there is a feeling of dislocation as if witnessing the page being written as you read it and as if reality around you is being to match the words on the page this feeling is made stronger if the text is forensic and linguistic analysis confirm that the text has been written by alan wake with the same typewriter as the earlier materials discovered in brightfalls in 2010. see brightfall's awe case file for information a supplement to this document reads as follows type written page ai 83-ke supplement the page was discovered in an instance of the ocean view motel and casino that was linked to the investigation sector the page has been pushed into the motel's corridor from under the door with the symbol of a spiral appendix text transcribed from the item for 10 years i've tried to write my escape only sinking deeper i used to know where fiction ends and reality begins here they are all the same in a hideous trap my every thought made real fear desire how can i ever know for sure that i've escaped and not just lost in my own fantasy of it that thought alone could drive you mad the identifiable words in the scratched out portion falls bright falls haunting wake allen wake light switch ocean too late in the final sentence you've been warned control's base game also makes mention of another allen wake related altered item a coffee thermos a report on the thermos reads oh dear diner coffee thermos ai73-ue containment procedure no unique procedures required altered status is suspected but unverified description slash altered effect a blue coffee thermos with a white plastic cap and a logo of the oh deer diner located in bright falls washington the cap doubles as a mug the item responds to formula i dot 16 yet no discernible altered effect has been discovered other than keeping liquids warm for surprisingly long periods of time it's also worth noting that the coffee from the thermos is always refreshing and strong no matter its quality before being poured into the item background the thermos was discovered on the shore of cauldron lake outside the town of bright falls both are known sites of a reoccurring awe see brightfall's awe case file for further information according to witness statements alan wake c prime candidate program entry for further information who went missing shortly before the discovery of the thermos had been seen collecting similar thermoses for purpose these altered items and a few other allen wake references were all available to players before the announcement of the awe dlc and were thought by some to just be easter eggs however when the player finally triggers the awe dlc jesse begins to see visions of alan wake she has similar looking visions throughout the rest of the game these interactions are actually calls coming to her through the hotline while the hotline is primarily used to communicate with the board it can also be used by the director to communicate with the deceased and with entities living in other dimensions allen is seen sitting at his typewriter and is narrating what jesse is experiencing just as he did for himself during his adventure in bright falls jessie is made aware that a new button has materialized on the sector elevator one that brings her to the investigation sector investigations is a abandoned sector of the oldest house and contains several large-scale recreations of different awes that the bureau was investigating much like the foundation dlc this expansion offers even more insight into the history and scope of the bureau but we're going to move past most of that in order to continue focusing on control's ties to the greater remedy connected universe through a series of documents and audio recordings we discovered that after alan wake disappeared into cauldron lake dr emil hartman was visited by the fbc during their investigation of the bright falls awe hartmann saw himself as a sort of peer to the researchers at the fbc and offered to share his findings with them the fbc declined and informed hartman that his work was a violation of paranatural law they detained him and confiscated all of the work he was doing at the cauldron lake lodge after assessing that hartman posed no further threat he was released having lost all of his work hartman decided that the only path forward would be to dive into cauldron lake and immerse himself in the dark place he felt that he was better equipped to handle it than both thomas zane and alan wake and he was wrong hartman emerged from the lake as a sort of taken version of himself he was captured by the fbc and was held in the brightfalls awe area of the investigation sector rather than in the panopticon during their investigation the fbc brought in alice wake for some interviews she mentioned seeing a nightmarish version of her lost husband one who was averse to light we can only assume that this was none other than mr scratch the presence of alice wake seemed to awaken something within hartman and he escaped going on a rampage that caused the fvc to shut down and close off the entire investigations sector when the his resonance found its way into the investigation sector hartman underwent another transformation becoming warped and stretched into a horrific monster inevitably jesse faces and defeats the thing that was hartmann allowing for the investigation sector to be reopened as the dlc episode comes to a close the fbc receives an alert of another awe occurring in the cauldron lake region however the date for it is several years in the future we then get another peek behind the spiral door and hear alan's voice [Music] things set in motion if the alarm's true then so is the reason for the alarm the effect must follow the cause it's happening again [Music] you have been warned this clearly indicates that a future remedy game will see a return to brightfalls and cauldron lake and that the fbc is keeping an eye on the situation however this is only the top layer of control's ties to alan wake throughout the dlc we get several of these hotline calls from allen allen continues to narrate jesse's experiences but also discusses his attempts at escaping the dark place allen mentions that he needs a hero and that a hero needs a crisis he mentions a story about a government agency and how he needed to infuse it with some alien force mimicking human intelligence he takes some writing he cuts it up and throws it into a shoebox and then rearranges the words and phrases to create a daughterist poem this poem is the hiss incantation wake created the words that the hiss are repeating throughout the oldest house wakes influences on the events of control become even more alarming when we discover a screenplay for an episode of knight springs penned by alan wake it turns out that at some point in time the fbc purchased the rights to the night springs tv series and rebooted it the fbc has a sort of propaganda wing that uses different types of media to influence the public's perception of awes and the paranatural the particular script in question here appeared mysteriously at the oldest house after the fbc had already acquired the rights to the show the episode is called over the threshold darkly and is set within a secret lab at the federal bureau of night springs the screenplay approximates the expeditions into slidescape 36 the tension between dr darling and director trench trench being corrupted by the hiss and trench's death the discovery of these writings led some fans to believe that the entirety of control including the fbc the hiss and jesse faden had all been written by alan wake and that understanding cheapened the entire experience for them now i can't blame someone for feeling that way but i think those perceptions are based on an incomplete understanding of alan's powers it's been stated by people from remedy that alan wake can't just create reality he can only influence it for his powers to work his writings have to use things that already exist and from there where there are weak points in reality he can push through his creative will while the topic is still up for debate it's my belief that alan wake did not create the hiss however he did create the hiss incantation in the same ways that the hras amplify the hedron resonance it's my opinion that the hiss incantation is an amplifier for the his resonance regardless it doesn't seem possible to me that alan wake could have created the fbc or jesse faden wake needed a hero and jesse was in a position to become that hero he could write things along the way to hope to guide her to certain conclusions or actions but he can't interfere with anyone's free will what he writes has to make sense for his characters and has to work within the logic and limitations of the people and places he writes about allen is calling out to jesse faden for help but he can't force her to help him when he first makes contact with jesse polaris is aware of wake as well and doesn't see him as any sort of threat the game makes a point to note this and also notes the contrast in polaris reaction to the his resonance the hiss works to create a hive mind that is void of any free will whereas allen's powers in the dark place cannot threaten free will it should be said that a lot of what i'm discussing right now is open to interpretation and many of the questions that are debated and left unanswered will likely be addressed in future remedy games the game describes director zachariah trench as a man who was already somewhat skeptical of the bureau before becoming director he never really wanted the director position in the first place the work began to eat away at him even before his exposure to the hiss given his agitated state it seems feasible that he would be more susceptible to wake's suggestions the whole concept is detailed in this transmission from alan wake i've written and rewritten deconstructed reconstructed experimented with different voices changed the style changed myself forgotten the language relearn the language have i been here before gone down this path before the darkness wants to hide the past to make me lose my way you must know where you've been to know where you're going i trust what i read on these pages i wrote them for a reason my notes to myself the only way to make progress recap then write more the style then lose the fat make it clear ugly functional present be blunt only the brutal truth cut through the reality tear it apart rewrite it be clever make them do the work form the image in their minds they make it you just imply incept they're drawn to the mystery obsessed you set it up they put it together their interpretation and there's only one because you give them no choice and they believe in it because it's theirs now so in summary no alan wake did not create all the events of control but he did have a hand in guiding some of them although he could only do this when people let him do it admittedly all of the nuances here are a bit murky and i don't want fans of control feeling like the entire story and jesse's journey and emotions were simply retconned into becoming the work of alan wake when the awe dlc came out as i've mentioned throughout awe we get a handful of cutscenes that give us a peek behind the spiral door one in particular is very confusing at first but it does work to tie the game even deeper into the remedy connected universe i feel this feels familiar i can't seem to i've forgotten that i'm sorry i'm my name is ellen wake [Music] who are you who are you do i know you i'm your friend tom tom zane there's nothing to worry about tom the poet the diver you look different that was just a role a character the protagonist i played in my my old film i'm a filmmaker an auteur like yourself i'm working on this together remember an artistic collaboration [Music] you need a drink hippos [Music] endless darkness nothing holds still but we're very close now you've been riding i found a way to escape it'll work this time riley you found a way no i i don't wait there's something it's my double he's out there i see it yeah yeah nothing to worry about i'm dealing with it it's fine my friend let me handle him you've met him what the hell now now come on you misunderstand me in this scene zayn for some reason appears as an alan wake doppelganger although he does have a voice that is different from allen's he says that the diver was just a role he played in one of his films he says that he's a filmmaker an auteur like alan an auteur filmmaker is one whose personal influence and control over a film is so great that they're regarded as the author of the film it's unclear if zayn means this literally as if he's suggesting that alan wake is also a filmmaker or if he's just suggesting that allen is a powerful creative force in the projection room at the drive-in theater in alan wake's american nightmare we see a movie poster that reads tom the poet a pin prick of light in an ocean of darkness this same poster appears in the opening tutorial of alan wake and in alan wake remastered the poster has been reworked to be even more explicitly a tom the poet movie poster what this truly means has yet to be revealed but it's an intriguing connection that i'm sure remedy will explore soon enough thomas zane says that he and alan wake are working together which ties back into a fan theory that started showing up online all the way back in 2010 the theory suggests that the events of the first alan wake game were being co-written by alan wake and thomas zane things like the appearance of the clicker at the end of the game do seem to suggest that zayn is in some way influencing wake's reality but it's really something that we can only speculate on at this point this scene also makes mention of mr scratch and zayn is once again somewhat dismissive about mr scratch and his activities in reality just like he was at the end of alan wake don't mind him your friends will meet him when you're gone use the clicker in allen wake illuminated which is a making of companion piece to ellen wake we learned that remedy had a rather involved backstory prepared for thomas zane but he cited that he worked better as a more mysterious figure again these threads will likely be addressed in a future game but that doesn't mean that there aren't already clues available to start piecing this puzzle together control also makes mention of alex casey at one point in the game two fbc employees can be overheard lamenting the fact that they will be missing the premiere of the new alex casey film the sudden stop american nightmare also featured an alex casey movie poster so we know that alex casey exists as a fictional character in control's reality however we eventually find out that an fbi agent named alex casey has requested copies of all of the fbc's files regarding the bright falls awe the fbc notes that this is strange considering that alex casey is the name of the protagonist in alan wake's most famous books if we go back to the return video featured in quantum break we can see that alex casey is working as an fbi agent it's too early at the time of making this video to truly understand what this all means but the pieces are in place for alex casey to be a significant character in an upcoming remedy game a move that would really bring the remedy connected universe full circle allen wake remastered also features some newly added content in the form of a series of videos very similar to the hotline call videos found in control they can be accessed by scanning a number of qr codes found throughout the game these videos focus on alan wake's connection to alex casey and while allen's message in the videos is rather cryptic it does seem to suggest that alex casey will be meeting with alan wake in the near future another link between control and alan wake is the fact that jesse faden is somehow aware of the poetry of thomas zane at some point after the ordinary awe jesse was institutionalized jesse's account of the ordinary awe and her trying to explain the presence of polaris in her mind were seen as signs of mental illness and jessie was told that she would need to let go of these delusions in order to be released back into society she underwent a number of therapy sessions during that time and the fbc was able to procure recordings of those sessions jesse finds some of these recordings while exploring the oldest house one of the recordings discusses a thomas zane poem that jessie recited one of the same poems that samantha wells found in a shoebox in her attic a poem that was also a favorite of dr emil hartman her psychiatrist says that she could find no evidence of a poet named thomas zane but did find a thomas zane who was a european filmmaker in the 60s the psychiatrist suggests that the poet thomas zane was made up by jesse and that jesse simply wrote the poem herself jesse denies this but we never find out exactly how jessie came into contact with this poem we don't know when these therapy sessions took place but it's possible that the shoebox and ordinary containing those poems is where jesse became aware of zayn's work there are plenty more connections between allen wake and control but one that i'd like to propose as a theory is control being the initiation phase of the hero's journey that alan wake is currently on i mentioned before the significance of the writings of joseph campbell as they relate to alan wake and the departure initiation and return process that the hero must go on to complete the hero's journey another person who analyzed storytelling and its structure was vladimir probe who was a soviet folklorist born in 1895. in 1928 his work morphology of the folk tale was published similar to joseph campbell's 17 stages of the monomyth prop's work morphology of the folk tale looked at 100 different russian fairy tales and identified 31 basic structural elements or functions that occurred in all of them he also identified seven character types that could be found in all of these folk tales while researching this video i came across a 2016 paper by dr dawn staubert called telling tales with technology remediating folklore and myth through the video game alan wake as a fan of alan wake and storytelling in general the paper was fascinating to me and i'll leave a link to it in the description of this video among many other points made throughout the paper sauber identifies that prop's seven character types appear in alan wake we have the villain which is the dark presence or barbara jagger the donor which is represented by cynthia weaver and cynthia weaver also takes on the role of the helper along with sheriff breaker and barry wheeler the fourth role the princess and her father is taken on by alice wake and dr emil hartman the dispatcher is thomas zane the false hero is mr scratch and of course the hero is alan wake stober goes on to illustrate that 20 of the 31 structural elements identified by probe appear in ellen wake the elements are functions that don't appear to directly show up in the game do show up as inversions of themselves stalbert makes a very compelling case that remedy and sam lake have taken pains to construct the narrative of alan wake to fit the structures presented by vladimir probe and joseph campbell given all the attention that was given to adhering to these narrative structures it stands to reason that the first alan wake game was the departure control acted as the initiation phase and the inevitable allen wake sequel will be the return so we've discussed how alan wake and control are connected and the presence of alex casey in the remedy connected universe gives us a clear through line back to max payne but how does control connect to quantum break well one of the most blatant connections is the fact that both jessie faden and beth wilder are portrayed by actress courtney hope there are two very subtle references to beth wilder in the remedy connected universe the first one can be found in a poem recited by thomas zane when he first meets alan wake i have something important to tell you it goes like this for he did not know that beyond the lake he called home lies a deeper darker ocean green where waves are both wilder and more serene to its ports i've been to its ports i've been do you understand no follow my light well i doubt that this poem was written with quantum break in mind it's still pretty cool that the opening lines of ellen wake make a sort of inadvertent reference to two of quantum breaks main characters beth wilder and paul serene and while paul serene is in many ways the main antagonist of quantum break there's a second antagonist named martin hatch martin hatch was also affected by cronon radiation and is believed to be more powerful and adept at shifting through time than jack joyce or paul serene i talked earlier about different worlds being side by side and on top of each other that's actually a line from a monologue given by dylan faden that monologue makes reference to a character named mr dorr in quantum break the player can find a note written by martin hatch and the end of it reads i have a plan it's already in motion but it would be futile to try to explain it to you like trying to explain three dimensions to someone who can only see one but make no mistake i do not look down on you i strive for humility even as i shift this world from one state to another i will make this possible i stand in between i don't see myself as a gate i remain humble i'm something smaller a hatch some of this language is very reminiscent of dylan's speech about mr dore and i'll play it for you here any new dreams you'd like to share dylan i'm glad you asked sister this dream like all dreams now felt very real like reality in reality now feels like a dream maybe it's all a dream maybe it's all real dream where my brother endlessly tells me about his dreams i was in a dark place and there was a dark man there his name was mr dor and he told me that there are many worlds side by side on top of each other some inside of others in one world there was a writer who wrote a story about a cop in another world the cup was real dor said he himself was in all of them at the same time endlessly shifting between them i asked him how i could reach these worlds i wanted to bring the hiss there but he didn't want to help me he didn't like the idea what did he know well i can obviously only speculate i do like to think that this mr door that dylan is referring to is a stand-in or echo of martin hatch similar to how alex casey is a stand-in or echo for max payne the other reference to beth wilder that can be found in the remedy connected universe is one that i think is up for debate while exploring the oldest house jessie learns that the fbc had been surveilling her for years she finds a number of documents recordings and photographs regarding this surveillance one photograph in particular shows jesse faden sitting at a table with a character who looks from the back a lot like beth wilder in quantum break beth goes on a very difficult journey through time that we don't get to experience first hand we know that at one point in her travels through time she meets a version of herself given remedy's appreciation for the metaverse and alternate timelines it's plausible that this photograph is meant to depict beth wilder meeting with jesse faden throughout quantum break we see the letters awe graffitied on various buildings and we also see a variety of graffiti murals done by beth wilder while the game never really gives a clear explanation of the awe graffiti it is interesting to think that someone in the quantum break universe is aware of altered world events and is attempting to spread that knowledge to the public in one way or another we do know for sure that monarch the mega corporation founded by paul serene is aware of both awes and the bureau of altered world events you may remember that in the this house of dreams blog the federal agents that showed up to samantha wells house had badges that read awe if you're wondering why they didn't have fbc badges well that's because up until a certain point remedy was referring to the bureau as the bureau of altered world events thus the awe badges in 2015 remedy took out a copyright on this name but at some point in the development of control the name of the organization was obviously switched but going back to monarch there are documents found in quantum break suggesting that there are conspiracy theories online attempting to link monarch to a secret government agency the bureau of altered world events this is getting highly theoretical at this point and is more of the implied connected universe rather than the official canonical remedy connected universe but if we look at alex casey's research in the return video found at the beginning of quantum break we see a box containing a statue of a ram there's an interesting classified monarch document that the player can find regarding this ram statue given what we know about altered items and quantum breaks links to control i think it's plausible that this ram statue is an altered item the document says that pulsarine ordered a ram statuette to be transported to the monarch headquarters two members of the safeguard unit transporting the statuette killed each other while attempting to steal it monarch employees take selfies posing with the ram and they start to trend on social media after this the state of utah initiates legal proceedings against monarch which sparks a sudden spike in the dairy product commodities market this chain of events is what's known as a ripple it's essentially cause and effect you see the cause is the pebble and that pebble causes a ripple it's through his cronon radiation powers and perception that paul serene is able to use these ripples to his advantage the ram statue continues to appear throughout quantum break and in some of its marketing materials it's also worth mentioning that the counter measure from quantum break does bear a resemblance to hedron from control well unfortunately i don't think we're going to see any of these quantum break theories responded to or followed up on in any future games directly it's still fun to think about and the possibility of more quantum break related stand-in characters or echoes appearing in future remedy games is an exciting prospect and on that note i'd like to mention that i have seen a large number of remedy fans online stating that max payne and quantum break cannot be part of the remedy connected universe due to remedy no longer holding the rights to those ips while the copyright issues do complicate those games inclusion into the remedy connected universe it doesn't outright exclude them in september of 2020 the director of control did an ama on steam when asked about how far back the remedy connected universe goes it was acknowledged that it's sometimes a bit harder to do with older games that don't belong to remedy anymore like max payne or quantum break but having said that remedy does want people to feel a sense of unsaid connection between them and if that's happening it's not an accident and in regards to the awe graffiti in quantum break it is stated that it is not a coincidence furthermore when it comes to some of the ideas and theories that i've presented here that are open to debate i think we can look to sam lake himself for some clarification in the commentary track for ellen wake remastered sam lake says this i very much think that you own this now this story this experience this game you are free to find your own answers from it you your own theories you are free to love and hate the parts that you love and hate nothing i say makes any theory more official than another it's just my theory what i was thinking when i wrote it but maybe i didn't see or know what it really was about we've covered a lot in this video and honestly there's quite a bit more left still to cover i've only given brief synopsis of these games and there are tons more easter eggs references and direct ties to be found within all of them and they all helped to build the remedy connected universe remedy has several projects in production at this moment and i'm sure we'll see some updates soon that will begin to provide some answers for some of the mysteries we've covered here i've done my best to make a clear distinction between facts and my interpretation of things but this is a topic that a lot of other people have very nuanced opinions on so i welcome any questions debates or discussions down in the comments there is a great page on reddit called remedy entertainment mysteries if you want to dive way deeper into a lot of what i've covered in this video i highly suggest reading through this page and learning more i worked on this video for a very long time and i tried to cover as much as i could without getting too into the weeds but there's a few leftover things that i'd like to point out that i didn't really know where to stick otherwise the chemist had been using the workstation when he died the half-life of the lab rat had ended online his password blinking on the screen 665 neighbor of the beast i need the code at the seventh floor door sure sure i know it i know it wait oh yeah 667 neighbor of the beast get it yeah i get it the codes blackrock 665 neighbor of the beast get it the shoebox whiteboard in control this is a whiteboard that you can find that has notes on thomas zane's shoebox it explains that any item put inside of a shoebox is then immune from the effects of any altered world events we also see that someone stole the shoebox from the fbc which coincides directly with the events of the 2012 this house of dreams blog in which the shoebox was taken by awe agents or fbc agents and then later was mysteriously brought back to samantha's house in control you can find jack's choice bran cigarettes which seems to me to be a nod to jack joyce from quantum break there's also pain bran elevators which is a clear reference to mona and the elevators in max payne when it comes to repeating and echoing themes and remedy games one thing that cannot be overlooked is that starting with max payne all remedy games center around themes of family and guilt in max payne max is avenging the murder of his wife and daughter who he was unable to protect in alan wake allen is working to free alice from the dark place because he failed to protect her in quantum break jack joyce believes that paul serene killed his brother william joyce and his motivation in the game is largely spurred by a desire to avenge or protect his brother in control jessie abandons her brother dylan when fbc agents tried to detain them and her entire journey is centered around trying to rescue dillon first from the fbc and then from the hiss sam lake has said that these themes of family and guilt are powerful universal tools that he likes to use in his work and i think he does so in a way that doesn't ever feel repetitive even though he repeatedly uses those themes in almost all of his writing the scene in alan wake where town drunk walter snyder begs allen not to leave him alone in the jail cell is a direct callback to mona sax begging max payne to not leave her alone in a jail cell in max payne 2. and the uneasy alliance between alan wake and the kidnapper mott early on in alan wake is very reminiscent of the uneasy alliance between max payne and mona sacks and max payne 2. there are points in quantum break where jack joyce is asked to trust martin hatch and in control jessie is asked to trust the fbc the same institution that kidnapped her brother this idea of being pushed into trusting or working with your perceived enemies is another theme that you'll see in all remedy games from max payne onward i could do a whole other video on theories regarding night springs american nightmare and the this house of dreams blog both mention characters watching night springs and then having some sort of paranatural visitors an american nightmare night springs is on the tv when barry becomes aware of allen's presence and as for samantha after watching night springs two shadowy figures break into her house in the awe dlc there's a brief moment where behind the spiral door night springs appears on a television with a strange image of dr darling that seems to almost be mocking alan wake what all this means is open to interpretation but it seems like televisions and television programs can be powerful paranatural tools or gateways in the signal dlc for ellen wake we can see a message on the wall in the bathroom that says mira was here this is in reference to john mira from address unknown the television show from max payne the role of ottie the janitor isn't fully explained in control but documents found in the game suggest that he is one of the most powerful figures in the oldest house and clearly knows a lot more about the paranatural than he initially lets on when jessie first encounters ati he says that she must be interviewing for the position of janitor's assistant despite becoming the director of the fbc auti still treats jesse as his assistant at one point in the game ati goes on vacation and he's staying at a cabin in the town of watery which is very close to bright falls ati is finnish and clearly serves as a way for remedy to put a bit of their finnish heritage into the game although i found a lot of conflicting information on the topic a lot of folklore and mythology refers to ati as the name of a finnish god of water or according to some sources a god of fishermen and seal hunters water is a powerful element in the remedy universe and it'll be interesting to see how his role might expand in future games the phrase you have been warned appears many times in remedy works we see it three times from true tom rimer and death rally the phrase is the final line spoken by alan wake in the awe dlc you have been warned and sam lake has also used it in interviews and online announcements for years there are certain key phrases like this that you'll find throughout remedy games and related media and it's a fun thing to look out for this last part is getting into some theories that are really only starting to take shape but control puts a lot of emphasis on trees it seems to all be alluding to the idea of trees found in different ancient belief systems trees like idrissil which in norse mythology is a large sacred ash tree that's in the center of the cosmos the tree extends into the heavens and also has very deep roots that extend into other worlds control features a section called the ashtray maze which is a visually stunning mission set to the music of old gods of asgard the track playing during this part is called take control and the lyrics essentially summarize the events of the game there are three different lines of backward speech in the song when played in reverse two of the lines are clues or instructions for unlocking a secret area in the game however the third line seems a bit more abstract in their drunken fever states see them both profoundly the pyramid in the stone file becomes a spruce tree upon clearing the secret area alluded to in the song we get a hotline call from alan wake that discusses the fate of tor and odin anderson the brothers and their band toured for a short time with barry wheeler as their manager the anderson brothers would disappear and go on wild benders after every gig their behavior was destructive not only to the tour but also to their own bodies it took them longer and longer to recover every time and it didn't seem as if they were ever even truly recovering barry decided to call off the tour and use the remaining proceeds to open a care facility so that the brothers could live their final years in peace and comfort the line in their drunken fever states see them both profoundly may have something to do with the anderson brothers and their partying but the pyramid in the stone file becomes a spruce tree isn't as clear documents and recordings located in the foundation of the oldest house suggest that it may have one time been a tree this implies that the oldest house is able to change its appearance or form members of the fec saw etchings of a tree in the foundation well it's clear that there are some references and allusions to something being made with all this tree stuff it's still unclear to me what it means for all the characters in the remedy connected universe a video sequence shown twice during the awe dlc gives us a brief glimpse at a map of bright falls and on it we can see a sticky note that reads cult of the tree we don't have any concrete information on what this means just yet but there's definitely a mystery to be solved here and that's it for now thanks a lot for sticking with me through this really long really in-depth video like i said earlier if you have your own questions theories comments debates whatever please meet me down in the comments if you like this video go ahead and subscribe we have plenty more videos that break down review and analyze some of our favorite games and if you really want to help us out go ahead and share this video with a friend who you think might enjoy it until next time see ya [Music]

Channel: Hidden Machine

Views: 84,794

Keywords: Alan Wake, quantum break, Control, Max Payne, Death rally

Id: XdovaaF6eME

Length: 168min 36sec (10116 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/antwonlevee]

We know that Alan Wake and Control are connected, but in this video I attempt to show how those connections weave through all of Remedy’s other games as well!

[u/DirectorBones]

I really wish Quantum Break and AW American Nightmare would be made available on systems I own but I think that’s much less likely than Alan Wake was.

[u/Abkehar47]

Beth wilder from quantum break is literally jess from control