Rumors of an Alan Wake sequel have been circling about since ... well, since Alan Wake and its DLC expansions left the door wide open for one. But also since the phrase "Alan Wake 2" first appeared on an artist's resume back in May. Developer Remedy confirmed with Joystiq that it was working on more Wake, though "this next Wake installment will not be Alan Wake 2," it said. "But neither will it be DLC." How appropriately mysterious! And now a rumor from Xbox World magazine says that Remedy is indeed working on Alan Wake 2, for the next-gen Xbox.

"We hear a number of Microsoft-friendly developers are hard at work on prepping next gen games as we speak. Could this be the reason why Remedy are so quiet about Alan Wake 2? (Yes)," the magazine responded to itself. "Rare, Lionhead and Turn 10 all have teams in place too. Rare, we hear, are even prototyping ideas for a new 'mature title,'" the mag adds.

We spoke with Microsoft Studios chief Phil Spencer at E3 this year, who said he read about the project on Joystiq and had no involvement with it at that time. "I think the stuff they're doing now they wanted to incubate, Mattias and the team," Spencer said. "They wanted to incubate internally. Like I said, I don't think they've signed it with anybody." Spencer also insisted that Microsoft Studios had no next-gen games in development and was instead completely focused on Xbox 360 and Kinect software.