When Alan Wake 2 releases on October 17, it will be the culmination of more than a decade of planning. Though Alan Wake 2 is a project that creative director Sam Lake says he always believed would happen one day, it didn't always appear that way on the outside, and in that time it's taken on different shapes--most of them never seen by the public. 13 years is a long time between a story and its sequel, especially for a game so wrapped up in Remedy's tangled web known as the Remedy Connected Universe. Now that it's finally real, we thought it would be worth a refresher on exactly where we stand at the start of Alan Wake 2 when it comes to its place in the wider Remedy story world.

Naturally, some of what the game will dive into is not yet known to us, and we can expect a few twists, too. However, there's plenty we do know, not just from Alan Wake, but from 2019's Control and even some other Remedy projects. If you're wondering how Alan Wake 2 fits into the wider Remedy Connected Universe, here's what you need to know. And please note that this article contains spoilers for 2010's Alan Wake and 2019's Control.

How Alan Wake connects to Control

Alan Wake 2 takes place in 2023. We know this because of some clues we spotted in the debut trailer. But in between those 13 in-game and real-life years, the events of Control occurred. Remedy used Control as the first overt admission of a Remedy Connected Universe, though narrative ties do predate the award-winning 2019 game--we'll get to those, too.