Alan Wake 2 Reviews

Personally, I like a sequel that parallels the real world passage of time since the previous title. Alan Wake 2 realises every moment of the 13 year gap, and references it several times throughout the story, which added to the overall immersion. You really get a sense that time has passed for Alan, and that he has been trapped battling the darkness for all of that time.
When I first heard that you would predominantly be playing as a new character I was a little hesitant. My concern was that there would be a disconnect between the original and its sequel, would it ‘really’ feel like Alan Wake? But Remedy understood the brief. Saga has been written in a way that really allows you to connect with her narrative and goals.
The overall story feels very well written, by a team who really wanted to do justice to the characters and lore from the first game.
The NPC’s you meet during your journey are also fantastically composed. You really get a sense that they are established residents of Bright Falls and its surrounding locations. This is done well by filling the world with references to their existence, weather by laugh out loud commercials by the Koskela brothers or by observing an argument with two care home residents, one of whom simply refuses to wear clothes.
It is no real spoiler that the Gods of Asgard also make a welcome return, 13 years older and somewhat wiser. It felt like visiting old friends and I genuinely smiled during the scenes where we interacted. There were moments of joy but also a macabre veil of sadness. Again, they weren’t just placed there because they should be, they were woven into the story so impeccably that it just made sense.
AW2 achieves the same success as its predecessor when it comes to creating atmosphere and suspense and let me tell you, this game is scary. The anxious feeling of being in the woods as the sun set gave me the same unease that the original did and reminded me somewhat of the Blair Witch game. Weather in the heat of a battle, the moments before or even when nothing particular was happening, you were always half filled with a sense of impending dread. It is true that anticipation of death is worse than death itself, and the atmosphere here is perfect. There were also a few jump scares where things simply flashed up on the screen when you didn’t expect it, which were a bit on the nose but never felt that they were used just for the sake of it. There were genuinely a few plot twists that I didn’t see coming and I definitely gasped on more than one occasion going into the second half of the game.
Without any spoilers the events on the beach just after the point of no return felt like I was experiencing something I just wasn’t worthy of, like being cradled in a pair of reassuring and warm arms whilst having my brow stroked and being told ‘everything is good in the world’.
The live action elements were well performed and often allowed for me to place my controller down and simply enjoy watching them play out, although they were never overused.
There are 19 chapters in total. Essentially equally split between Saga and Alan, and you can switch between each character and play them in any order. This isn’t a simple ‘play through the same chapter as a different person’, they each have their own separate stories and locations which drove the other storyline forward. This allowed for two different playstyles and it was impressive to see how progression with one character forged the path of the other. I really felt a sense of urgency toward the end of the game, I couldn’t just stop playing and leave these characters where they were, I had to help! The amazing music score assisted in achieving this, and once again I found myself listening in full to the songs that would play at the end of each chapter. And whilst these were largely unknown to me (no Roy Orbison this time around!) I felt I needed those 3 minutes to breath and compose myself for the next episode. To recondition myself to the calmness that would now come albeit momentarily.
I wouldn’t say this game is as challenging as the first in terms of combat, and I rarely felt overwhelmed. A couple of points required multiple replays but that was more down to my bad inventory management than anything else. There was still the occasional panic when I was down to my last flashlight battery, and you certainly don’t want to be running around the woods without it, but resources are quite plentiful if you take the time to look for them, and I finished the game with several first aid kits and flares still in my dusty shoebox. Ammo was also never a real issue, although I never had enough to store any away and still found myself counting bullets after an enemy interaction.
The mind place is also a new addition to this sequel. It works as a sub menu location (although the game is not paused while you are in it!). Essentially you can review all collectables; manuscript pages, TV ads etc. here, but where this really engaged me was the case board. During your exploration you will speak with people/discover evidence that you will need to correctly place on the case board to allow you to create deductions and ultimately progress your mission. Again, at first I was unsure how this mechanic was going to work seamlessly alongside the play style but by 1 hour in I couldn’t wait to add new evidence to the board. Again, this isn’t just placed in the game because Remedy wanted something different, it is explained and expanded upon and essentially becomes a vital part of the story.
There are 3 main hub locations for Saga. Completing certain main story objectives resulted in the flooding to a particular area receding, allowing earlier inaccessible areas available for exploration. This provided an element of further discovery. Unearthing a number of different tools as you progressed also allowed access to certain locked/chained doors, giving more of a reason to return to previous areas and I definitely felt a sense of an expanding world when I could access parts of the map that had been locked for half the game.
Collectables make a return but are no longer all required for full completion. Instead, the manuscript pages simply added to the story. Replacing thermos flasks we have nursery rhymes and stash boxes secreted around the world. Each requiring some logical thinking to resolve. Sometimes the answer was contained withing the cryptic note attached, whilst some required you to go searching for a key or a hidden code. These always felt fresh and again their existence was smartly weaved into the story. The rewards for completing rhymes were charms; another new addition for Saga that added certain buffs to the game. But these also came at a price. Often, elements of the rhyme would bleed into the real world. You complete a nursery rhyme involving a wolf doll and obtain a charm as a prize, but here’s a real life wolf or two to battle for your troubles!
Anyone who has played Control (and if you haven’t I suggest you do!) will definitely get a sense of the FBC presence in this game. This gets more obvious as you progress through the story, but never enough to become lost if you haven’t played Control. Personally I loved how the two games overlapped and I really believed they existed in the same world. This is not always easy to achieve and again is a testament to the developers and writers love for their art.
I unlocked 58 of the games 66 achievements during my initial play though, and without looking at their unlock requirements. The lions share of these were story related or will unlock with general exploration.
When a game is this good I am often saddened when I have no real reason to replay/new game + the story. I know some players were annoyed with the original games collectable achievements but man, I would gladly dive back through the story once more. Fortunately, with the addition of new game plus you can now carry over your items and collectables (albeit not until you reach the first shoebox), which allows you to mop up any missing items/achievements. This mode also includes additional manuscript pages and videos, including what is being referred to as the ‘true’ ending for completing it a second time. Whilst I don’t need to replay for achievements sake, I am definitely very excited to, which is testament to the quality of game that has been produced.
If I looked hard for any constructive criticism there were a number of occasions where I would walking over a stone or log and enter a slow motion state while I transitioned back to level ground. Never game breaking enough for me to shut the game down and I never got stuck, it just happened more than I would of liked, but I eventually learned to avoid these obstacles whenever I could.
I allowed myself to be fully consumed by the lore and developing story. Being a completionist I spend close to 40 hours in my first playthrough roaming around gathering all items and collectables in each area before progressing to the next one. I certainly felt value for my money with this play time. In an age when games are often delivered so poorly or broken it was refreshing to play something that you could feel the love in. During my nigh 40 hours of gameplay I never once noticed any glitches or crashes, pop ins of scenery or other syncing issues, the game feels robust.
At the time of drafting this review it popped up in my TA feed that Alan Wake 2 won the TA game of the year tournament and I was overjoyed to see this recognition. Alan Wake 2 is without a doubt the best game I played in 2023 by far. It was everything I could of asked for in a sequel to a game I held so fondly in my memory. 13 years is a long time to wait for a sequel, but if that is how long it takes to do it as well as Remedy did with this, then I will see you in 2037 for the next instalment!

Bright Falls, the Dark Place, and Alan Wake are all names most fans of the first game are familiar with and we've only heard echoes of since. An entire 13 year period has passed and finally a sequel and continuation of Wake's story has surfaced to show us what's in store for the writer. Let's dive into this dark lake together and discover if Alan can still shine brightly through the darkness, or if he'll be forced to resign himself to a never-ending loop of madness.

Alan Wake 2 opens up with some narration from Wake himself as he tells us this story only has victims and monsters and how the story will eat them alive. A naked man pulls himself out from Cauldron Lake and slowly makes his way through the woods in the dead of night. The man continues down the best path he can find until he's blinded by a set of bright lights, grabbed by a group of people wearing deer masks, and cut open on a picnic table. This chaotic event is stopped by some bystanders that scare away the masked murders and sets the stage for an approaching pair of FBI agents that arrive that morning.

Saga Anderson and her partner, Alex Casey arrive to Bright Falls to investigate the strange murders taking place in this small town. From here, players find themselves playing as Saga as she and Casey make their way to the murder site. We check out the scene, gather some evidence, and ask some questions and here is where we get to see Saga's, mind place. In this small room that's contained in Saga's mind, we can put pieces of evidence together, delve deeper into characters through 'intuition', and even upgrade our weapons later and listen to collected manuscripts pieces and other media. After Saga forms her theory, the agents return to Bright Falls where Saga can perform a proper autopsy. Things pop-off quickly from here as the lights go out, the corpse attacks the police, and one of the sheriffs just disappears before they can hand over some manuscript pages.

Casey and Anderson head back to the area of the murder site in hopes of discovering where the walking cadaver went. It's here that Saga starts to accept the weirdness of the situation and finds a way to enter into a weakened pocket of reality and guns down the corpse before it can make her one. She returns to the real and finds herself on the same beach that the body stumbled out of. Only this time, a new, breathing body is on the shore and upon stirring the person awake, Saga discovers that this ragged and scared man is the writer himself, Alan Wake.

Let's put a pin in the story for now while we take some time to talk about the actual gameplay and other mechanics. So as you may have guessed by now, this game is shared between two characters, Wake and Saga. While both characters fundamentally play the same, their biggest differences come from the areas we find ourselves in with them. Saga's side of the story has her stay in Bright Falls and the surrounding areas as she also interacts with familiar characters on her journey. Wake on the other hand sees his side of the story within the Dark Place and the effect it's having on Alan as he's trying to escape while stopping Scratch. Both characters have their fair share of memorable moments as we explore with them throughout their journeys. The only one I'll briefly mention is how Alan gets to experience a musical moment that comes out of left field but you'll wish would linger for just a minute longer.

While the areas may differ greatly from what both characters explore, both of our heroes must fend off the forces of darkness, the taken. Simply, these are typically people who have been overtaken by the darkness from the lake in one manner or another. In order to defeat them, first they must be hit with your flashlight's beam or a flare then you can unload on them with your pistol, shotgun, even arrows! Perhaps one of the game's bigger downsides comes with the enemy variety as besides bosses, there's only four; melee focused taken, taken that throw knives, wolves, and a really beefy taken that looks truly monstrous. It really would have been great to see two or three more enemy types just to keep things fresh throughout the game but it doesn't harm the experience that much.

When she's not killing taken or delving deeper into the investigation, Saga can explore a the areas to discover cult stashes, rhymes, and lunchboxes. The stashes always have a puzzle needed to open them, sometimes they're simple Simon Says style puzzles while others may have you bust out a calculator for the goodies inside. The rhyme puzzles are pretty easy and have some nice rewards attached to them and the lunchboxes aide in upgrading your weapons so you don't want to pass them up. Meanwhile for Wake, he's not too worried about collectables this time as the thermoses last time were enough for him. Though Wake can still upgrade himself by finding words of power that enable him to upgrade not only his weapons but himself too as he makes his way through the Dark Place.

Just some final mentions in regards to the story and characters before we talk about the achievements and wrap this up. Overall I would say the story does a great job of drawing you in and for long time fans and for people who have played Remedy's other games like Control and Quantum Break, there are plenty of nods and hints as to things going on and possible future events. Perhaps my biggest complaint in regards to the story and characters boils down to Saga, mostly because like Jesse from Control, her personality is drier than rye bread. They certainly try to elevate Saga and she does have moments where the voice actress is making me believe she's panicking but then Saga's face is just still and unresponsive in the scene, totally killing those moments. The story itself ends in a way that will leave you wishing we got more answers by the end but at the same time it's not an unsatisfactory end either.

How about those achievements though? Great news if you're an achievement hunter, this list is pretty easy and can absolutely been completed in one playthrough. The bulk of achievos can be picked up as you make your way through the story but do be careful. There are plenty of collectables that can be missed but the game does give you a warning when you're about to hit the point of no return so you can mop up most remaining collectables. I would suggest finding all the mayor Setter campaign slogans and meeting him later as he'll give Saga a charm that reveals all collectables in a nearby area, makes cleaning up significantly easier. This list is an easy time and won't stress you out as it's pretty easy to keep track of what you have and what you're missing.

Alan Wake 2 finally brings back the writer and plenty of familiar and new faces into this next chapter of his story. While not everything gets wrapped up in a nice bow at the end, I feel that enough gets answered and resolved here to satisfy most. Regardless though, the game does a great job at bringing you back into the horror story and showing us that this goes deeper than we could have originally expected. If you've been waiting for this sequel, I believe you'll come away pretty happy with everything it has to offer, while a bit more would have been good too, what we have here doesn't leave you unhappy. So, don't worry about falling down a seemingly never-ending spiral of darkness here, Alan Wake is ready to step up and ascend as the champion of light with some help from Saga.


NIGHT SPRINGS DLC:

The first set of dlc has released for AW2 and this set is separated into 3 episodes in the style of Night Springs, the Twilight Zone of this universe. Our host setting the scene each episode is Mr. Door who will also offer some final words at the end of the episodes too.

Episode 1 focuses on Rose, the waitress from the, Oh Deer diner as she's being absolutely marveled by the townsfolk. Things kick off when someone announces the writer is in danger and Rose grabs her shotgun, rifle, and plethora of ammunition as she heads out to rescue her beloved writer. The episode is a fun time as we get a glimpse into Rose's head and her combat music helped to keep things feel light and silly as we blast away the haters.

The 2nd episode puts us in some familiar shoes of Jesse (from Control) as she is in search of her brother. Her latest lead has brought her to Coffee World, a coffee themed park that has developed a very strange cult centered around, yes coffee. Jesse quickly gets a gun and flashlight and the gun's fire-rate feels great and can immediately remind you of her future weapon. Episode 2 felt like a nice pseudo prequel to Control and it was nice getting to play as Jesse again.

Episode 3 though was probably my favorite as besides getting to play as the sheriff character that goes missing early in AW2 (kinda), episode 3 is where Remedy goes full ham. The director of a video game shows up and gushes about their current project, realities shift in ways utterly different than what we've ever seen before, and the implications for what may be coming help to keep me hopeful for another sequel in the Remedy-verse.

This dlc adds 12 achievements, each episode containing 4 of it's own related to that episode. While there are a couple that may be missed on an initial playthrough, replaying the episodes can be rather quick so not to worry about sinking in a lot of time for missing 1 or 2 achievements. Overall, the experience is a nice change-up from the base game and even has some nice inclusions and hints from other Remedy games. Prepare to dive once more into the weird, but fascinating world that you may wish to call home in, Night Springs.


THE LAKE HOUSE DLC:

With the 2nd piece of dlc out for Alan Wake 2, it has us follow a character from the main game, FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) agent, Kiran Estevez. This bit of dlc will actually take place a little bit before the events of Alan Wake 2 and focus on Estevez's investigation of a FBC facility called, the Lake House, that has gone silent.

The Lake House, true to it's name rests on the edge of Cauldron Lake in Bright Falls. As the lake itself as been a solid source of paranormal to happen, the FBC thought it best to have a station nearby to closely monitor the lake for any abnormalities. Estevez heads alone inside the station and finds it be quiet and empty of the dozens of staff members that should be within. exploring further floors below reveals the head scientists were conducting some rather unethical and dangerous experiments.

This piece of dlc is certainly more focused on giving us an atmosphere closer towards what you may have experienced in Control, just without the cool powers. The cold and emotionless hallways and offices portrayed in Control's areas come through here in the Lake House as well and when you find areas with the walls covered in strange paint it almost sets you more on edge, like something has corrupted this clean and orderly space you once knew.

While the tone and areas you travel through feel in line, unfortunately I felt that this dlc left me wanting and didn't do much to make me remember it. Only one new enemy type will appear in this dlc and it's impervious to all forms of damage... until you get what's essentially the rocket launcher and that'll do the trick. I was pretty disappointed to discover there were only these single new foes, especially when their 'source' should have nearly unlimited potential for new enemy types.

Another piece of disappointment came from the final boss in the dlc. Remedy have never been known to have good boss fights and sadly that remains true here. The boss is nothing you haven't seen before; a humanoid enemy with a dark veil you need to break before you lay into them with most of your ammo. While Remedy are typically pretty good at making interesting characters and places to explore with good combat, I can only pray they hire a small group of people to develop boss fights that are fun and engaging for future titles.

Additional achievements were added for this dlc as well and the vast majority are easy to pick up and can certainly be done in a single run. I would however strongly recommend you check the guide for, Shape of a Man, as it currently is acting a little buggy but thanks to some experimentation, users have found a reliable work-around for it that's very easy to do.

The Lake House ended up being a very lackluster piece of dlc that I didn't find provided enough new content or new mysterious to ponder over. It's small addition to the story of AW2 didn't feel impactful or even necessary and it's short and uninteresting tale will drift off to the depths of the lake to be forgotten as nothing more but the dlc that teased Control 2.

Alan Wake is a memory for me of times where these little gems of 360 titles from days gone, hold something pure outside of the current times of micro transactions, and pay to win game mechanics.

With Alan Wake 2 - though there was a deluxe edition available, it’s core was 2 future DLCs along with a 3/4 length red rain coat for Saga ( FBI Agent ), and a John Wick style suit for Alan. Both also get embroidered guns as a weapon skins = £64.99 all in.

So as I loaded in - I asked myself. Is it nostalgia chasing? I’d did both the original and American Nightmare back on 360, I wanted it to be good.

And overall, yeah - it’s a very good game. 30 hours had me at 100% complete but requires some backtracking after making story progress, and much like the book, your expected to do a few loops.

With the introduction of Saga as a playable character it allows for 2 different story lines to weave into one along side when you play as Alan. Both have their own set of achievements linked to them, so the key is to plan ahead. For those planning to mop up and backtrack what you missed - the point of no return is when you get access to the sheriff station, you will be notified at this point.

A welcomed improvement from the original titles, is the stamina bar is gone - with the dodge mechanic still in. Inventory is a simple to use tile system, with shoebox for additional storage at save points.

The ability to change the level on the fly in order to process as well as play out the story is very well done, and level design is spot on. Never felt any environment I was in was out of place. And it’s dark, real real dark so brightness slider may be needed - sometimes for your own sanity.

I also really liked the transitions between in game video to actual fully acted scenes. It’s not flawless, but it’s decent enough to keep the immersion.

The known audio issues at launch have been sorted, and again - tone, pitch, and style worked really well.
Pace was nice as well - not ever a run and gun, there was always a destination to get to and are encouraged to explore, and loot as much as you can along the way.

Few side notes -

1 x Words of Power is needed for the achievement
the 27 in total are not needed

1 x Weapon must be upgraded to max for 2 achievements - which will require 60-70 manuscript collectibles, not every one.

When you get a rhyme puzzle to solve - don’t forget to pick up your puzzle pieces.