Beth Wilder (Courtney Hope), Jack Joyce and Nick in Quantum Break.
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How Remedy’s Sam Lake stepped up the ambition and creativity of Quantum Break

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 11 min

Sam Lake, whose name is an anglicized version of Sami Järvi, has provided the creative spark behind Remedy Entertainment’s games from the beginning. He’s the writer of Max Payne, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, and Alan Wake. But he stepped up to the role of creative director with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, and he performed that role for Microsoft’s new exclusive video game, Quantum Break.

This consistency of creative vision tells you why Quantum Break has so many familiar nuances, such as the television episodes, timing-based combat, a story with a broken family, and a bunch of Easter eggs related to Alan Wake within Quantum Break.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.