XBLA's Alan Wake: American Nightmare Keeps Licensing (Good) Music

Music from real bands continues to infect the horror-themed world of Alan Wake.

One facet of Alan Wake which worked superbly was the music. Not only did the soundtrack composed by Petri Alanko support the creepiness of the eponymous novelist's time in the woods, but each episode ended with a sometimes very recognizable song from well-known musician's like Roy Orbison and Nick Cave, including the final credits backed with "Space Oddity" by David Bowie. For the standalone XBLA game, American Nighmare Remedy Entertainment continues the trend of licensing strong music by featuring the breakout single from British rock outfit Kasabian - "Club Foot". Alan Wake: American Nightmare will be part of Microsoft's XBLA House Party 2012 promotion, which begins February 15th.

Licensing music for games can sometimes be a difficult legal process, but Remedy benefited from a strong partnership with EMI Music Publishing group. "Having already worked with Remedy on their previous Alan Wake title we were more than happy to continue our relationship with them and I believe that our combined ability to select and supervise moody tracks for Remedy's upcoming action-adventure will result in a better gameplay experience." said Andreas Olsson from EMI.

"Music played an important role in the original Alan Wake and we've carried that tradition over to American Nightmare with an exceptionally strong selection of original and licensed songs", said Oskari Häkkinen, the guy in charge of Franchise Development at Remedy.

One particularly neat set piece in Alan Wake had the protagonist defending the stage as a fictional rock band called the Old Gods of Asgard performed. If you liked that part of the first game and the song that played during the sequence, you're in luck as the fake rockers are making a comeback in American Nightmare

"To spice things up a little more, Alan's old-time buddy and literary agent Barry Wheeler has become the manager of the game's seminal rock-band Old Gods of Asgard - expect a brand new single to be included with the game!" Häkkinen exclaimed.

So that should be sufficiently awesome.