Less than a week ago some live action Alan Wake footage hit the web. We now know that the footage was part of the new Poets of the Fall video for their song War. You can now view the full video!
Ilkka Villi, who played Alan Wake in Bright Falls, reprises the role in the video. Even knowing that he was the model for Alan Wake in the video game of the same name, it’s a still pretty amazing seeing him standing there on the road. You can’t believe what you’re looking at.
While a lot of people may have been hoping for some sort of Bright Falls TV series or even a film, this music video is actually a pretty big deal. As Remedy teased earlier this week, this is something unlike anything that’s ever been done in the industry.
It was only in the last decade when Grand Theft Auto created a break through licensing deal to collect a massive soundtrack of known artists and musicians for their franchise. This led to the video game industry working hand-in-hand with the music industry. Today we see not only a great deal of licensed content, but entire franchises based around it. Guitar Hero, Rock Band…some of the most popular games today wouldn’t exist without a deal like that.
Now we’re seeing another part of the equation. In the 90s, the movie tie-in music video became common place. Only now has the gaming industry caught up. Here’s an artist promoting their hit single using not a movie tie-in, but a video game tie-in instead!
This represents a turning point where games have gotten so realistic (not to mention popular) that something like Alan Wake makes sense to put in a live action music video. Not only is this a music video about a video game, but it’s done without using a single frame of the game itself. Alan Wake’s imagery is so powerful and its characters are so lifelike that you can do an entire five minutes of live action and people know what it’s from. You see Ilkka, you see that obnoxious jacket and the flare, and you know this is Alan Wake. It’s pretty incredible.