Some of the best, most compelling stories make you think about them after they are done and dusted, sitting with you for a while and making you question if you missed anything. Alan Wake has always been about the mystery, with the first game throwing up a metric ton of questions, which were slowly answered through spin-offs, ARGs and even completely separate games. Even then, the mystery wasn’t fully explained, and to some extent, with Alan Wake 2 now in our hands, it still isn’t.
Thirteen long years we have waited for Alan Wake to make his return, but as Remedy finally take the opportunity to tell the next chapter in his story, he’s not alone. Yes, Alan Wake is the titular protagonist, but there’s also FBI agent Saga Anderson. Neither character is more important than the other, this story they share featuring them both in equal measure. You can swap back and forth between them throughout, experiencing their sides of the tale roughly in lockstep, or play almost all of one before tackling the entirety of the other – the choice is yours.
Alan, still trapped in the Dark Place, is trying to fight his way out the only way he knows how, through his writing. The Dark Place has taken on the form of his old stomping ground, New York City, but it’s become a twisted facsimile of itself. Alan’s little trick for getting around sees him use the Plot Board to rewrite reality.
While walking around dark New York, certain areas become scene settings, to which plot points can be applied to change those scenes, opening up new areas to explore. New plot points are discovered through finding Echos, which give Alan visions of story events to inspire him and drive his story forward. It’s a really smart way of engaging you with the multi-layered storytelling in the game, by giving you the ability to shape it on command.
Yes, there is only one route forward, but that doesn’t mean you cannot experiment, trying different plot points on different scenes in the same area, discovering extra narrative touches you may have missed. Alan can also affect his surroundings with his lamp, drawing energy from sources of light and placing them elsewhere to open new areas for exploration – the plot board and lamp are in some ways a variation on the same theme.
On the flip side, you have Saga, an FBI criminal profiler called to Bright Falls to investigate a string of ritualistic murders, quickly getting drawn into the madness.
Playing as Saga really felt like you are in the boots of an FBI agent – well, a TV show imagining of an FBI agent. At any point, Saga can visit her Mind Place, her own variation of the well-known Mind Palace technique. In her Mind Place, Saga is able to see all the information available to her – maps, manuscripts, weapon upgrades – but more importantly, her Case Board.
Clues picked up as you explore are used on the Case Board to advance the investigation and plot. You’ll start off with a main case and slow pin clues to the board making threads and deductions, pushing the story forward. Like Alan’s ability to rewrite reality, there’s only one path forward, but the way it’s executed, the experience and sense of discovery that goes with it is excellent. Saga also has unique intuition, lending her the ability to profile people in her Mind Place that she has met, asking them questions and making deductions from the answers. You really do feel like a detective in the truest sense.
However, the Mind Place doesn’t stop time and won’t protect you when enemies come at you, shrouded once more in the darkness that infests this part of the world. Both Alan and Saga handle these shadowy enemies in a similar fashion, burning the darkness away with sources of light – mainly your trusty flashlight – and then blasting away with a gun.
Combat was one of the less-loved aspects of the original Alan Wake, so it’s nice to see improvements have been made to better the experience. There’s a greater sense of weight to the guns, each gunshot can be felt and heard, and the impact of each bullet feels meaty. Dodging is back as well, with some sweet slow-mo and enemies stumbling if you time it correctly, and the combat in general no longer feels clunky. Remedy has had many years and games to work out the kinks, and it shows here.
Don’t take that step forward to mean that this is a full-on action game, because it isn’t. This is a survival horror game and fighting is mainly about defending yourself. Resources are scarce and a lot of the time, I was wandering around certain areas on edge, the darkness truly hiding what’s around every corner. Also, for the first time in years, the jump-scares in Alan Wake II actually got me. Some may be enemies that appear out of nowhere or other apparitions flashing up on screen. Even when I expected them, I still yelled at the screen as they caught me, but I smiled afterwards every time.
It helps that both Bright Falls and the Dark Place are dripping with atmosphere, in its settings and characters. There are people aplenty to talk to and things to discover throughout Bright Falls, and I feel like I barely scratched the surface during my first run. I can’t wait to go back and see what side-cases and puzzles I missed, and to explore more of the wilderness of the surrounding area.
One thing that also struck me is that this game doesn’t hold your hand. No marker will appear on screen telling you where to go or the best way to get there. You have to work it out for yourself, consulting area maps and cross referencing with the quest list. The same can be said for the various environmental puzzles. A lot of them are solved by observing the details around you and applying a little brain power to find the solution. Too often in modern games we are given easy puzzles to make you feel like you’re solving something, but here you have to use logic and deduction.
The Dark Place is no different. There’s plenty of hidden secrets for Alan to discover, such as Words of Power, which when found can boost things like Alan’s health or improve his guns in battle.
All this sits alongside a really engaging story that will have you questioning what’s going on from start to finish, answering questions, but also throwing up a ton of new ones. To really appreciate this game, you will probably need to have played the first, but at the same time, a new story is being told with Saga. Remedy has ensured that it works for newcomers to the series and existing fans alike.
They’re not done yet, though, with New Game + coming, a higher difficulty, an alternate narrative with new manuscript pages, both paid and free DLC, and more surprises.
Graphically, Alan Wake II is stunning. Remedy’s Northlight Engine gets props for making the game look truly wonderful. From every drop of rain on the dark New York street, to the strands of hair on characters’ heads is just beautiful. Like Control, the game does really well to mesh real life footage during gameplay or recreating classic film techniques through the rendered graphics, and it makes for some real trippy moments when you are exploring – one chapter in particular is a real joy to play because of this. The one downside to this ambition is that things can get a little too hectic with effects popping off that cause some major slow down and stuttering. That this came toward the end of the game really broke my immersion.
The graphical requirements on PC are a tall ask, so while my GeForce RTX 3070 is still a great card for most games, I had to settle on graphics quality in order for it to run smoothly – Remedy pinpoint this as being good for 1080p60 on Medium settings, and that’s generally about right. It still looked great, but I know I wasn’t getting the full experience. Over on console both a 30FPS Quality and 60FPS Performance mode available on PS5 and Xbox Series X,
It would also be remiss of me not to talk about the music of the game. Petri Alanko is back providing his sounds once more, alongside some licensed music. I really enjoyed the ambience of his work, but it didn’t feel as pronounced as it did during the original, which I feel is a missed opportunity. It’s still very good, I just wish it stuck out a bit more.
