So, because I've been visited once again (and very hot on the heels of the last visit) by a certain stupid freaking virus, I've had a lot of time on my hands sitting here at my computer. This, as it turns out, is the exact state ideal for watching nearly three-hour-long video essays about games, so I watched Hidden Machine's "Exploring the Remedy Connected Universe," which goes all the way back to Death Rally and up through Control and its DLCs.
Spoiler warning: this post touches on elements of existing games but also the previews we've gotten for Alan Wake II.
The video came out a year ago, evidently before the announcement of Alan Wake 2, but what I find fascinating is that there are elements Hidden Machine mentions that have now shown up quite clearly as part of Alan Wake 2.
Specifically, this is "Initiation" and a figure named Mr. Door.
In Alan Wake, the manuscript whose pages we find across the Bright Falls area that describe the events of the game, evidently written before they start happening (and as we discover later, were written by Alan during his lost week in the Dark Place) is for a novel called Departure. That game and its DLCs end with Alan beginning work on a new manuscript: Return, which is presumably going to be his way of escaping the Dark Place.
But as we've seen in previews for Alan Wake II, there's another book that he seems to be writing instead - something called Initiation. We see him on a talk show with a Mr. Door (who we'll get to) discussing the book.
My initial read on this was that it was something insidious - that the Dark Place had decided that it was going to convince Alan that he was writing a different story, this being the one that would allow it to emerge and take over the real world, as it tried to do in the first game.
However, as the Hidden Machine video points out, this actually all comes from Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory - that the Hero's Journey has several stages, but can also be divided into three acts: Departure, Initiation, and Return.
We know that Alan has been struggling for thirteen years to get out of the Dark Place, and perhaps Initiation is required for him to actually get to Return - the perils of taking shortcuts, as Thomas Zane did with Barbara Jagger, are clear. This could also set up the need for Alan Wake to be a trilogy of games.
Now, Initiation is also an interesting term to consider given that we're looking at a game that involves at least two named cults - there seems to be a Cult of the Tree in Watery, in the real world, and at least in the Oceanview Hotel segments that have been previewed, there's some story about a Cult of the Word.
Initiation can be used in the context of cults and similar insular organizations (or, more broadly, religions). Usually, a cult will claim some esoteric knowledge that is hidden from the wider world, and there's a sort of step past the threshold to initiate a new member and make them prove themselves worthy to receive that knowledge.
In this sense, initiation can be used (by more abusive and insidious cults and organizations) to isolate someone from the outside world as well, which of course makes it harder to leave or break ties with a group like that.
That, to me, is where I got the negative association with the term. Of course, the power of the Hero's Journey and other deeply ingrained mythological forms can be used for good or for ill - most evil groups entice people into them by telling them they're becoming great heroes.
Of course, in Alan's case, the first game ends with him stuck in the Dark Place - he's departed the world he knew in a very literal sense. Initiation might be what he needs to learn his place and how the Dark Place works.
Now, let's talk about Mr. Door.
I never played Quantum Break, but based on the summary of the game (and the aspirations to make it a kind of video game/prestige TV show) in the Hidden Machine video, it appears that Martin Hatch, played by the late great Lance Reddick, served as the sort of "bigger bad," whose mastery over time and alternate timelines surpassed any of the other characters. Hatch is vaguely humble in a note he leaves behind, taking the name "Hatch" to dispense with any grandiose notion that he's a portal or gateway - just a little modest hatch between realities.
Later, in Control, Dylan Faden mentions having had a dream in which he speaks with a Mr. Door, to whom all realities seemed to be open, and who refused to help Dylan spread The Hiss to all those other worlds.
In Alan Wake 2, Alan finds a TV where he's going onto a talk show hosted by... Mr. Door. And he's there to talk about his new novel, Initiation.
Now, Mr. Door is not played by Lance Reddick (Reddick died earlier this year in March - which wouldn't necessarily rule him out if they had shot this stuff last year or so, but I don't know if A: his health problems were preventing him from playing this role or that he might have just been busy - Reddick was a prolific character actor) but the actor who plays Mr. Door, David Harewood, is certainly of a similar type - a tall and thin Black man. I honestly would not be surprised if the original intention was to cast Lance Reddick in this role and have him play the Remedy's-copyright version of Martin Hatch here, much as Sam Lake and James McCaffery are playing (Lake as model and McCaffery as voice) Alex Casey, who is for all intents and purposes Max Payne.
If we can assume that Mr. Door is more or less what Hatch was in Quantum Break, perhaps that sets him up as a major recurring figure in Remedy titles going forward. We've already got Ahti the Janitor showing up in Alan Wake II. Do we even know if Mr. Door is a human person, or is he some extraplanar, godlike being (as Ahti is implied to be)?
Anyway, as something of a Remedy noob, it's really exciting to see how these things develop and grow.
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