To further distance this next game from the linear style of "Max Payne", Remedy planned Bright Falls as a free-roaming, sandbox-style open world city, similar to those seen in the "Grand Theft Auto" series. They developed a semi-automatic system to help generate this open world using biomes and other features based on their research on the Pacific Northwest where Bright Falls was set. For example, this tool allowed them to path a road across the game world, upon which the tool would make sure no vegetation would appear near the road though added sprout of grass near its edges, and would add approach ditches and other features along the sides of the roads to simplify the world creation. Remedy also wanted cinematic action, so light and darkness was to play a significant factor in the game, which was first built into a dynamic day-and-night cycle. The game would have been more like a survival game; during daylight hours the player would collect resources, such as gasoline to run portable generators to run lights, as to protect and defend the player-character at night. According to Remedy's creative director Sam Lake, this approach created numerous difficulties in establishing a story and narrative for the thriller to explain how the gameplay elements tied together with the supernatural events. For example, Lake said one idea was based on the supernatural events tied to the no-longer dormant volcano under Cauldron Lake, which would have led to the evacuation of Bright Falls and left Alan dealing only with the supernatural forces.