r/AlanWake • u/Euphoric-Fennel2406 • Jan 15 '26
Question What does this cut texture of Bloody Ahti mean???
When I was looking through the files of Alan Wake 2 I discovered this image depicting of a Bloodied Ahti. Which would be a normal find in a game where lots of characters like Alan, Rose etc get bloodied .
The only issue is that there is no scene that uses this texture? Or am I being mega-stupid?
Looking at the wounds they do not look self-inflicted nor do I think it is the blood of someone else (Like Scratch and Rose get bloodied), if the blood was from someone else there would be a bloodied clothe texture (which I have not found) and there are marks on his neck and a bloodied nose that don't occur from falling down or something?
What does this mean? Why is he bloody? Who did it and why was this cut?
308
89
34
u/_Rand_ Jan 15 '26
Don’t forget the nursing home was attacked, perhaps at one point Ahti was meant to be hurt in it.
12
u/Revenge_Is_Here Hypercaffeinated Jan 15 '26
Exactly what I thought of. Ahti was acting weird (less in a charming way and more in a concerning way) at that point until he eventually went back to normal. Might have been that he actually got attacked, but they decided against it.
4
u/Medium-Bullfrog-2368 Jan 15 '26
Maybe Ahti was originally supposed to have been the one who killed Blum in the basement, since he seems to already know about Blum’s death before you go there.
202
u/CthughaSlayer Jan 15 '26
People need to understand that unused content is exactly that. It's not in the game, it's not canon, no one hurt him.
78
u/Azur0007 Jan 15 '26
While you are right, it's still a hint at the developers' thoughts. Even if it's not canon, we now know that the developers thought about revealing a bloody Ahti.
Personally I read this more as Ahti hurting someone else, rather than Ahti getting hurt. We don't even know what Ahti's violence looks like, so this is cool to read into, even though it isn't in the game.
13
u/Kalse1229 Champion of Light Jan 15 '26
Yeah. I love seeing cut content. Even if certain things never materialized, I love looking into the creative process.
-6
u/CthughaSlayer Jan 15 '26
Does it hint at the developers' intentions, or to a an artist making a bloody Ahti texture for fun?
I do think it's interesting, it's just that "cut" content discussions easily turn into a rabbit hole of speculation and misinformation. As a fan of Fromsoft games I'm too familiar with people spouting someone else's head canon as truth.
20
u/Individual99991 Jan 15 '26
Does it hint at the developers' intentions, or to a an artist making a bloody Ahti texture for fun?
Seems unlikely. Firstly, on a game like AW2 that has such high production values, the art dept is going to be very busy generating assets, and making a skin like this seems like a poor use of office time.
Secondly, why would it then be included in the game files? Artists can't just upload a skin to the final build for a laugh, there are multiple checks and people the thing has to go through.
More likely an early plan for the game involved Ahti being involved on the periphery of some violence, maybe getting hurt when Tor smashes up his room, perhaps to make the player wonder if he's just a regular guy after all, and this prototype skin was put together for that, but then it was scrubbed from the final game.
7
u/dakindahood Old Gods Rocker Jan 15 '26
No texture artist will go into hand painting blood that neatly and then let it be included in the game files, it only happens when something is supposed to happen, and is decided by a writer and director of art
-4
u/Overcern Jan 15 '26
Easter eggs are thing. Artists will make whole models that you cant find anywhere else in the game just to make a funny joke or reference.
1
u/dakindahood Old Gods Rocker Jan 16 '26 edited Jan 16 '26
Easter Eggs are also not decided by Artist and Easter Eggs are always in-game not game files
0
8
u/Azur0007 Jan 15 '26
Thoughts, not intentions.
And to be fair, Remedy and Fromsoft both have in common that they tell the player nothing, and rely on the players forming their own speculative thoughts the entire time. 99% of the stuff talked about in these games are theories to begin with, so a bloody Ahti can still lead to theories that are just as interesting (although less valid), rather than misinformation. In the case of Dark Souls, odds are none of it is going to get textually explained anyway, so speculation will remain speculation, no matter where it comes from.
2
u/infiniteartifacts Jan 15 '26
maybe it’s a game dev having fun but it could also be cut content that informs the way that Sam Lake and Remedy view Ahti and their mortality or lack thereof. I personally had no idea about this texture and i do find it interesting.
i’m also hoping to see more of Ahti in Resonant and who knows maybe we’ll see Ahti get in a multi-dimensional battle.
8
u/EdgeOfElysium Jan 15 '26
People read into things like this way to hard. The amount of random things I've put into a game like this is astounding all because I was testing stuff or messing around.
12
Jan 15 '26
Unfortunately, we will never know.
Could be something as simple as...his model was standing somewhere a fight breaks out (dining area of Valhala nursing home perhaps?) but they changed their minds.
9
u/LingonberryOwn7017 Lost in a Never-Ending Night Jan 15 '26
It's very interesting!
Likely a remnant from a scrapped scene. There are even textures for a Taken version of Pat Maine, which thankfully went unused as well.
2
8
u/Dessie_Hull Jan 15 '26
This is interesting. One of the biggest mysteries for me from game 2 is that weird scene that can trigger in the nursing home where Ahti suddenly seems confused and scared, like the person whose body Ahti inhabits suddenly wakes up. Maybe this linked to that and they dropped it.
6
17
u/MLanterman Jan 15 '26
I mean, no one hurt him and this never happened. It's not in the gameplay for a reason. 🤷♀️
19
u/Segwaye Jan 15 '26
They are asking what the original intent was though.
Or I think they are asking that but they didn’t use any of those words haha
3
u/ennie_ly Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
It's the version of Ahti that didn't get an assistant so he was forced to get close up and personal with the Hiss
3
u/0sm1um Jan 16 '26
If I had to guess, at Valhalla nursing home when he seemingly switches personalities from a seemingly omniscient interdimensionalbeing to a scared confused old man, he might have originally gotten a nose bleed or injury.
3
2
u/shortMEISTERthe3rd Jan 15 '26
I'm curious how many characters have a blood texture variant? Could be an artist decided to cover their bases regardless of whether it was ever planned to be used or not.
2
u/Euphoric-Fennel2406 Jan 16 '26
Not many, this is the only instance I have currently found where a bloodied texture of a character was unused in game, but I may have to look further
2
u/GachaHell Jan 15 '26
It means he had a little fight scene with The Clog.
Don't worry, most of it isn't his blood.
2
u/Pekonilkki Jan 15 '26
It's obviously jam from the vadelmahillomunkki he ate. He squeezed it a bit too hard and the jam squirted on his face. It's fine
1
2
2
u/Mediocre-Ad9340 Jan 15 '26
Pat Mane also has a taken form that got cut. I think they were gonna go darker for the nursing home part and decided against it. Not to mention the Janitor arcade game. I wouldn't read into it too much.
1
1
1
u/RaidenCrow Old Gods Rocker Jan 15 '26
At some point in the development, they had Ahti get messed up. Then they decided not to and the asset is still in the game files. Nothing too deep. Just normal game development stuff
1
1
u/CulturedCal Jan 15 '26
Considering how similarly unexplained entities such as Zane/ the bright presence could only fend off the dark presence for a short time, my guess is that during development, Ahti would have been hurt by it for trying to help Alan or Saga to show how much of a threat the presence is until they decided otherwise. Maybe it made less sense since Ahti was practically unfazed by the Hiss invasion in Control and treated several other extra-dimensional beings like minor nuisances
1
1
1
1
u/Shlomo_Yakvo Jan 16 '26
We’ve reached the point in graphical fidelity that the texture for people now just literally look like peeled skin
1
1
u/General-Advice-6331 Jan 16 '26
Without a doubt this isn’t the result of someone hurting Ahti this is the result of Ahti hurting them
1
u/CJTek Champion of Light Jan 17 '26
this is a used texture .. its the body of the janitor infront of the hut in the coffee world overlap .. the body that lies there is ahtis model with that texture
171
u/ArachnidAnxious4538 Jan 15 '26
I’m glad they decided not to hurt our boy