When you are talking about a true narrative experience, full of action, horror, and suspense with a gripping story that sucks the player into a new world, one they cannot truly leave until the end of this journey. Remedy Entertainment has once again created something that takes you on a journey you will never forget! In the past, they have taken us to places from the darkness of New York City in the neo-noir third-person shooter Max Payne, a personal favourite of mine. We have fought the Hiss in a secret U.S. government agency and now we return to the darkness to face the shadows once again! Welcome back to Bright Falls, are you scared of the dark? Hope you brought a flashlight because… This is Alan Wake 2!
Watch Out For The Boogie Man
Story
After the mysterious disappearance of the writer Alan Wake, jumping forward 13 years after the events of the first instalment and his attempts to escape the Dark Place, we are introduced to the new sequel in the most Remedy way possible. Extremely dark and horrific- where light is the only thing keeping you safe from what waits for you in the shadows. You start off playing as a bald, middle-aged naked man confused where he is stumbling through a forest running from the shadows.
Hopeful that our current character will escape the nightmares hunting him down, we are unfortunately met with a rather grim and nasty death at the hands of a cult called The Cult of the Tree. This sets of the events that follow for one of our main protagonists FBI agent Saga Anderson, and her partner who have been called to the sight of the grisly murder. We are thrown into a psychological nightmare where we must find those responsible for the death of the man and the cult terrorising the sleepy town of Bright Falls.
Alan Wake 2 introduces for the first-time a way to play as both Saga and Alan but the best part, after a certain part you can pick and choose whose story you would rather complete first, Saga or Alan’s. The first time you can play two different single-player campaigns that entwines with each other. The choice is yours. Playing as both characters gave Alan Wake 2 a bigger boost in gameplay for me, especially with how much the story jumps from in-game to real life which adds to the psychological side of the game.
Saga’s story takes you through the world of an FBI agent trying to solve a crime and work out who The Cult of the Tree is and what’s happening in Bright Falls and these manuscripts. Alan is still stuck in the Dark Place and experiencing his crime novel Alex Casey, played by Max Payne himself, the Creative Director Sam Lake, who is also the partner of Saga. On his journey of escaping his hell and finding a way to stop Alan Wake 2 has a very different atmosphere compared to the first Alan Wake, in the first game you feel more in the dark, which gave me more Stranger Thing vibes with the Dark Place feeling very much like the Upside Down, also adding to the creepy side more than the scary side.
Alan Wake 2 changes this entirely this time you do not know what to expect, the jump scares come out of nowhere, leaving you wishing you knew as you probably soiled your pants. Alan Wake 2’s story is tense and gives the term “Survival Horror” a run for its money next to the Resident Evil games. Alan Wake 2 has only one way to get out of the Dark Place and it’s the only way he knows how… WRITING himself out.
Remedy Entertainment proves writing the right story can change everything. Alan Wake 2 has one of the most psychological horror stories that I have played in a long while it gave me a true horror experience that played tricks with my mind and gave me a good scare! With an ending that not only tied up the game the right way but also left us wondering what’s next for Alan, let’s hope we don’t have to wait long.
Good Night, Good Luck!
Gameplay
Alan Wake 2 still introduces the same gameplay mechanics from the first game, where your flashlight is the tool, you will always need to defeat the shadows. Using a survival horror element instead of action-adventure, you will need to conserve your ammo and batteries as without these you are in a world of trouble. With a handful of different weapons to unlock as you progress. Fighting enemies preserves the same, torch, shoot, and dodge but with Alan Wake 2, enemies are more deadly. Enemies will randomly spawn out of nowhere which gives you that tense cutting edge that something is always behind you.
A bit like Slender-Man from the creepy pasta stories who hides in the shadows and follows, watching you. I found the new element a lot more of a heart-racing adrenaline rush – not knowing what would be lurking behind me. When it’s too quiet that is never a good sign, so if you see a light just run towards it. The lights from things like safe rooms, or lamps are the only place you can stand a breath while the shadows are around.
Alan Wake 2 lets you feel truly like a detective in your own story, using the Mind Place, basically has Remedy refers is the 3D menu. This is the inside thoughts of Saga where you can gather your thoughts and manage the pin board to connect different events and clues to solve mysteries, completely enemy-free. Who needs Scooby and the gang when you have Saga? This incorporates the detective element helping piece together the main mystery.
You can also profile the characters which will help gather more in-depth clues and suspicions that prove Saga is one of the best detectives for this job. But you will also need to use your own skills when trying to work out some of these mysteries as the game only helps you so far. You can also upgrade your weapons and skills. Alan can upgrade by finding his Words of Power, around the environments that can be found by the yellow paint, which features 21 different skills to unlock and upgrade. Saga only lets you upgrade the weapons in her inventory, using the hidden manuscripts you can find. Saga’s upgrades are higher on costs due to the number of manuscripts you collect than Alan’s being based on the Words of Power you find.
As Alan, you will have a similar 3D menu to the Mind Place and instead be in the Writer’s Room. This outlines the novel you are writing and helps create different scenarios as you try to complete your horror story. Each clue can alter the environment and manipulate the space around Alan. I must highly recommend it, and I mean this with pure honesty. Never enter either the Mind Place or Writer’s Room in a dangerous location as this is just all in your mind and doesn’t pause the outside world.
Alan Wake 2 has tons of puzzles that you will need to work out in both stories, without the right pieces you can’t complete which can be very difficult depending on whether you’ve collected all the right clues and information sort of like a big jigsaw puzzle. In Alan’s story, you will find glowing orbs that you will need to look at from a certain perspective to trigger more of the story to progress through the level and unlock new paths and clues. Alan Wake 2 feels like a movie mixed with a game with truly amazing storytelling and acting, giving it a cinematic experience for anyone who loves a good horror movie!
They Can SEE Us.. They Can HEAR Us
Graphics and Audio
Remedy Entertainment has always been able to create beautiful worlds, and with Alan Wake 2 they have made the perfect environments that give the right horror aspect adding to the darkness. Whether that be the dark, graffiti-filled city of New York to the dark forest full of nightmares, Remedy creates the perfect scenario for every location. The game has a smooth frame rate with no issues or glitches which makes the game a lot more enjoyable. The cutscenes jump from in-game to live-action like I said before felt like at some point I was watching a movie which was a unique look for me and showed the actors were both fantastic in voice and live performances. The music was hauntingly beautiful and created by the talented Petri Alanko, we also got an in-game musical number called “We Sing” that was shown live at the Game Awards 2023, and this was an amazing experience with The Old Gods of Asgard find me another game that does this!
Now Our Nightmares Are Real
Accessibility and Options
Alan Wake 2 has many options in place to accommodate players with disabilities although on console you cannot remap the controls as you can on PC. There is gameplay assist such as aim assist, although you will need to still have fast reactions when fighting in close-quarters but you will also need to be precise when aiming. There are several different difficulty settings in Alan Wake 2 that you can use to make the game as easy or difficult as you prefer.
Controls such as sensitivity and controller vibration. Assistance with controls and tutorials. Subtitles and captions. Clear mission objectives when navigating and visual directional cues. Audio cues for visual events and audio depiction. Alan Wake 2’s options let you choose the sound levels of the audio, such as music, and in-game audio like voice and effects. Gameplay settings let you change the sensitivity and other options like aim assist. Graphic options allow you to choose if motion blur is on or off and film grain. The graphics mode can also be changed from the quality mode that favours the visual fidelity of an output of 4K in 30fps or performance that favours the output at 1440p and framerate of 60fps. The interface gives you the option to remove the HUD and other on-screen prompts.
Final Thoughts
Alan Wake 2 was the game I was waiting so long for, being a huge fan of Remedy Entertainment’s games in the past and growing up as a kid watching my late brother Darren playing through the first two Max Payne games, this was kind of like a trip down memory lane, seeing Sam Lake playing a detective again giving me vibes of Max Payne was a nice sight. I truly loved everything about Alan Wake 2 and I am psyched for the two expansions to release this year. All in all, if you’re a fan of games such as Resident Evil or Max Payne and want to experience a nail-biting adventure with pure horror then check out Alan Wake 2 you will not regret your playthrough, this just proves that Remedy Entertainment has still got the knack for making amazing narrative games!
Alan Wake 2 is AVAILABLE NOW on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Epic Games Store
GAMERHUB RATING: FIVE (Out of FIVE) JOYSTICKS
(Thank you to Miika, and the amazing team at Remedy Entertainment for providing the code for this review)
