I think one of the most exciting things about this is that it's not "Oh, we had a surge of popularity for this old thing so we're going to do a sequel or a requel" but that they have been ACTIVELY working on this, and thinking about it, and have gotten two great games--Quantum Break and Control--out of ideas they DIDN'T want to use. It really makes me want to play what they finally decided was the best sequel.
Exactly. I've been following Remedy since I was a teen and they've always made it crystal-clear Alan Wake 2 was the #1 priority in their hearts, but the realities of AW1 not selling particularly strong at first meant they didn't have much leverage to make it as soon as they wanted to. They very transparently and regularly talked about Alan Wake 2.
I'm really excited to see how different this turns out from the original now they can apply the lessons they learned in Quantum Break and Control.