I got so jazzed by the Alan Wake easter egg in Control Resonant. While I think the "RCU" will benefit from having other series outside of Control and Alan Wake, I'm obviously just so enamored with Alan Wake as a series that I can't help but find my mind fixating on it.
Alan Wake II might not be my favorite game in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay (though I'd be curious to revisit it having now played a few other Survival Horror games) but it's right at the top for use of video games as an artistic medium, telling a story like none other I've seen in gaming in a manner unlike any I've seen in gaming (and honestly, playing into my own tastes as someone influenced by David Lynch as well as lots of twisty stories about dubious perception of reality, like Fight Club.
(Sidenote: Fight Club is one of those movies where saying your a fan kind of invites some follow-up questions, as there are plenty of people who seemed to miss the whole point of it. If you thought that the Fight Club video game where you could unlock Fred Durst as one of the fighters was a good idea that was consistent with the themes of the movie... I think you might need to re-think what that movie is about. Though hey, I never played that game, and maybe it was doing something subversive and ironic. I doubt it, but I can't say for sure.)
Anyway, Remedy has shown a willingness to go in very different directions with its sequels. While I actually don't think that Control Resonant feels unrecognizable compared to the first game, even with the shift to melee combat (we still, for example, are encouraged to play aggressively thanks to the health fragments dropped by foes, and there's a lot of floating in the air dodging things) we certainly saw a pretty big shift in Alan Wake's gameplay from a more action-oriented style to the slow-paced survival horror of the second game (though still keeping the signature "first flashlight, then gun" pattern.)
Thus, I'd be really curious to see whether a hypothetical Alan Wake III would shift things again.
First off, let's talk about the plausibility of a third game. The second game's true ending (the Final Draft version) sees Alan reawaken from his "death" with the Bullet of Light having gained the knowledge of his past cycles through the events of the game, and having become what he calls the Master of Many Worlds. There's something a bit ominous to that name, as an expansion of Joseph Campbell's "Master of Two Worlds" end-state for the Hero's Journey.
What seems won at the end of the second game is that A: the "Bright Falls AWE 2023" has ended, with no more Taken threatening the town or the world, and B: that Alan is finally out of the Dark Place (my understanding is that the Writer's Room he's in at the end is literally the room in the Valhalla Nursing Home, rather than the one in the Dark Place - though it's interesting that the Valhalla Nursing Home seems to have kind of become the "retconned" version of Bird's Leg Cabin).
Saga's story seems resolved: Logan has been rescued from the childhood death that was written into the story, and is now alive again, and this likely means Saga's life is back to how it was prior to arriving in Bright Falls. But Saga is also now initiated into the Weird and aware of her own parautilitarian nature. I do wonder if she'll stick with the FBI or join the FBC - certainly I can imagine Estevez would be eager to recruit her. I don't know whether Saga is likely to play as prominent a role in the next game, though her connection to Mr. Door could potentially draw her back into the conflict. Part me just wants her to be able to live her life again and not deal with all of this horror.
While Alan is victorious in the end, he's also kind of right back where he started: Alice is once again in the Dark Place, and while she seems to be better-equipped to handle that, he's still motivated to return to her. (Isn't it interesting that both Control and Alan Wake are stories in which people are struggling to reunite? I still haven't finished Control Resonant, but Dylan spends the bulk of it trying to find his sister, when the first game was motivated primarily by Jesse trying to find him).
It's interesting that it's implied that Alan's attempts to escape were so convoluted simply because he made it so convoluted, thinking it had to be. Thus, I wonder if his next plan to rescue Alice is going to be similarly convoluted and cause a bunch of other problems that will give us the events of a third game.
Sure, he's seemed to experience some kind of spiritual growth, but he's still Alan.
If the video we find in Resonant is any actual hint at what might happen in a future game (and that's a big if) here are the elements I think it could point to:
First, that he might be teamed up with Alex Casey. This does present a challenge given that Casey's voice actor, James McCafferey, died shortly after AWII's release. But unless he had also done any VO work necessary for the Max Payne remakes, I'd assume that they'll be looking for a sound-alike who can take over the role.
If we assume that retired FBI agent Alex Casey and long-missing author Alan Wake do actually found a Security company called A Watchful Eye (presumably as part of a scheme to investigate paranormal stuff,) perhaps the game will lean into a kind of mystery-solving gameplay system. (Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a narrative Alan creates for them to get into the Dark Place.)
Alan Wake II was initially planned to have a mystery-solving mini-game that Saga would do in her chapters. But Remedy realized that they would effectively be making an entire other game to cram into its Survival Horror game and felt that this would A: take too much effort and B: might frustrate players in Saga's segments.
But a whole new game might be the perfect time to introduce this as the core gameplay system. Maybe they can take ideas they came up with for that and flesh them out into a new mystery game in which Alan and Alex solve paranatural mysteries as they search for Alice.
Now, why is Alex Casey involved here? Well, first off, he was a professional investigator, so he'd be a good person for Alan to have. But they're also two people who were hosts of the Dark Presence, and I imagine that might have forged a bond between them. (Also, it lets Sam Lake show his mug all over the game, which I know he loves to do.)
Obviously, Remedy hasn't actually announced anything (I think the only projects they actually have lined up are the Max Payne remakes - and I wonder to what extent those are just going to be straight-up faithful recreations of the games or if they'll inject more RCU connections into them) but here's hoping.
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