Microsoft recently announced that Alan Wake’s American Nightmare would be part of the publisher's Xbox Live House Party promotion - along with other downloadable titles including Ubisoft's I Am Alive. While an exact release date for the Alan Wake's next journey into the night has yet to be unveiled, Remedy Entertainment has actively been promoting the project via a gameplay walkthrough at CES 12 as well as offering up candid interviews about the title's improved gameplay, role in the larger Alan Wake story and now, game length.

During a gameplay walkthrough with Game Trailers, Remedy Entertainment's head of franchise development, Oskari Hakkinen, asserted that Alan Wake’s American Nightmare will last players roughly 4-5 hours, depending on how much time they spend exploring the optional story components (i.e. collectibles and videos):

"The story mode is, it's kind of hard to put a time on it, but I'm guessing for the average player, [it's] something between four and five hours, maybe a little bit more depending how much you explore the optional story content."

Considering Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is a downloadable game (not a full-fledged Alan Wake 2 or more Alan Wake DLC), 4-5 hours is about what players should have been expecting - given that the original title was about ten hours and each of the DLC episodes added roughly an hour or so of playtime.

That said, we've yet to hear an official price for Alan Wake’s American Nightmare - so, even with the new "Fight till Dawn” arcade mode, it's unclear what kind of value the downloadable title will actually offer. Microsoft will no doubt want to price the game competitively (probably 1600 MS points - i.e. $20) - since both Remedy and Microsoft had invested a lot of money into the Alan Wake brand and, no doubt, hope that the American Nightmare will not only get new gamers to check out Alan Wake, it'll also ignite interest in a full-fledged Alan Wake sequel.

Could that Alan Wake sequel already be en route? According to a new Remedy job listing, the developer is hiring for a Gameplay/AI Programmer to help design a "groundbreaking AAA console project" and  work "on the next iteration of Remedy’s in-house engine that was previously used in Alan Wake and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare."

At this point, Remedy is pretty dedicated to the Alan Wake brand - with American Nightmare and Alan Wake on PC as the only remaining announced projects at the studio. As a result, it's becoming increasingly likely that, as mentioned, Remedy intends for American Nightmare to stoke interest in Alan Wake - before they announce a "groundbreaking AAA" sequel in the coming months.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare will release as a part of the XBLA House Party promotion next month.

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Follow me on Twitter @benkendrick for further updates.

Source: Remedy Entertainment (via VG247); Game Trailers (via CVG)