Sam Lake

Sami Antero Järvi (; born 28 March 1970), better known by his pen name Sam Lake ('Järvi' is Finnish for lake), is a Finnish video game writer and director. He is the creative director at Remedy Entertainment, known for his writing (as well as his likeness) on the popular Max Payne video game series (in which photos of his face were used as Max Payne's face), and Alan Wake.

Career

Lake attended University of Helsinki studying English literature around 1995. He was introduced to video games through a long-time friend Petri Järvilehto, one of the early members of Remedy Entertainment. Remedy was developing their first game Death Rally and needed text for the game, and Järvilehto asked Lake, one of the few people Remedy knew in writing, to help. Lake accepted the offer, and has since remained with the company.

Max Payne Lake played several roles in the development of Max Payne (2001). He wrote the game's story and script and helped design levels. Because of the game's budget, Remedy could not hire actors. As a result, Lake, along with other Remedy programmers, artists and staff played the roles. Lake became the face model for the title character and he even got his mother to portray Nicole Horne, the game's main antagonist, whereas his father played Alfred Woden.

In the sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003), the expanded budget meant Lake could stick to writing. The game's script ended up being about four times as long as some movie scripts. For the sequel, the budget increase allowed the team to hire professional actors to model for the graphic novel cutscenes and Lake was subsequently replaced by actor Timothy Gibbs. However, if the player should watch any of the TV set shows during the game, they will see that Lake models for various characters in Max Payne's meta, in TV shows and billboards, such as John Mirra in the television show Address Unknown as well as "Lord Valentine" and "Mama" in Lords and Ladies, and, finally, "Dick Justice" in Dick Justice.

The ending theme song, "Late Goodbye" which appears in various points of the game, often sung by in game characters, is based on a poem by Lake. The song was written by the Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall.

Mob boss Vinnie Gognitti remarks that the creator of Max Payne's in-game cartoon series, Captain Baseball Bat Boy, is a man named Sammy Waters, which is a play on the name Sam Lake.

In the Max Payne film which was released in 2008, Sam Lake also provided some writing help, though mostly for the character background.

Alan Wake Lake was the lead writer for the 2010 "psychological action thriller" Alan Wake, which went on to receive numerous awards and a positive critical reception for its characters and story. He appears as fictional movie star Sam Lake in an in-universe TV show alongside Alan Wake.

The first game also features references to Lake's earlier work with Max Payne when the player is allowed to read a few pages from the protagonist's novel The Sudden Stop. When opened, the pages are voiced by James McCaffrey, the voice of Max Payne, and makes clear references to the previous games, such as the troubled character's murdered wife and baby, and his abuse of painkillers.

Lake reprises his role as the fictional version of himself in the 2023 sequel Alan Wake II, where Lake is cast in-universe as Alex Casey, the detective subject of Alan Wake's novels. Lake also appears as himself in the game's first downloadable content expansion, "Night Springs".

Works Games Year Title Role(s) 1996 Death Rally Writer 2001 Max Payne Story, screenplay 2003 Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Writer 2010 Alan Wake Director, writer 2012 Alan Wake's American Nightmare Creative director, writer 2016 Quantum Break Creative director, executive producer 2019 Control Concept, writer 2023 Alan Wake 2 Director, creative director, lead writer

Likeness and acting roles Video games Year Title Role Notes 2001 Max Payne Max Payne Likeness 2019 Death Stranding Veteran Porter Likeness 2023 Alan Wake 2 Alex Casey Likeness, motion capture 2025 Dead Take Frank Gardeu

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominated work Result 2020 23rd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Outstanding Achievement in Character (Jesse Faden)Control Outstanding Achievement in Story 2024 27th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Game of the Year Alan Wake II Adventure Game of the Year Outstanding Achievement in Character (Saga Anderson) Outstanding Achievement in Story 20th British Academy Games Awards Performer in a Supporting Role 2025 14th New York Game Awards Andrew Yoon Legend Award 25th Game Developers Choice Awards Lifetime Achievement Award