I have a very cynical viewpoint on AAA storytelling, often seeing it as faux-meaningful and vaguely cinematic. Alan Wake II, by contrast, is neither merely appropriating cinematic technique or falling back on rote nonsense. It's certainly nonsense, but it embraces that - it's an intentional mindfuck that truly pushes the AAA game narrative not necessarily in its contents but in its mode. There are countless points throughout Alan Wake II where Remedy's approach to storytelling actually feels sophisticated and provocative. And sure that's a low bar (when you discount your TLOUs, your Red Deads, your God Of Wars - the really marquee stuff) but Remedy leaps so god damn far over it.
By fusing live action and traditional game cutscenes here, Remedy has created a new way to convey information that is both surprisingly harmonious and purposefully discordant. Alan Wake II is clearly aware of the "rules" that curtail AAA storytelling and break them, breaking its own narrative framework in the process, breaking the fourth wall implicitly. Remedy knows that we're playing, and Remedy leverages that fact - even if Saga Anderson never turned to me, winked, and said "isn't this nuts!" We get as close to that line without passing it as feels appropriate, for a game concerned with asserting that games are a vehicle for storytelling that can and should do a lot more to remix the medium's affordances than it does now.
This is also just a really damn good survival horror game. It's genuinely scary and violent in a way that few games, I find, are able to be - reaching a sort of arthouse horror tenor that recognizes tropes, either leaning all the way in, or working to effectively subvert what's been wrung dry. Sound design, art direction, novel worldbuilding choices - they converge in such effectively unsettling ways.
Alan Wake II, when you become enmeshed in its illogical yet oddly contiguous world of postulations and terrors, is a new high-water mark for what AAA games can be. The ambition on display here is so well and truly beyond the overwhelming majority of its peers.
But this is also an extremely flawed game at its core, on a gameplay level. The combat is a major sore spot, significantly lacking enemy variety to the point of any sense of threat dissipating - the extremely limited foes all require the same rinse & repeat strategies. But these monster closets can become unnecessarily punishing when the checkpointing feels all sorts of wrong, forcing you to retread unskippable dialogues before retrying an encounter after those exchanges, in the worst moments.
Navigating the world can be a chore as well, constantly brushing against an unhelpful map and a world that - both intentionally and unintentionally - gets you turned around even when you backtrack through the same environments end for end, time and time again.
These issues wouldn't be so apparent if the game was 10ish hours long instead of 15 about, a pace that's further hampered by a narrative-switching structure that gives you all to much freedom at points. It often left me feeling more confused than empowered.
So there are doubtlessly a lot of issues with Alan Wake II, many of which aren't in the game's contemporaries. But those titles aren't attempting to be anywhere as boundary-pushing or inventive as this. Alan Wake II falls short because it tries VERY HARD to be more than you'd expect from a modern survival horror title, a modern AAA title overall. And in this case, I value that creative intent far more than I magnify its mechanical issues.
This is a flawed masterwork, but perhaps the most important and necessary game of 2023.
By fusing live action and traditional game cutscenes here, Remedy has created a new way to convey information that is both surprisingly harmonious and purposefully discordant. Alan Wake II is clearly aware of the "rules" that curtail AAA storytelling and break them, breaking its own narrative framework in the process, breaking the fourth wall implicitly. Remedy knows that we're playing, and Remedy leverages that fact - even if Saga Anderson never turned to me, winked, and said "isn't this nuts!" We get as close to that line without passing it as feels appropriate, for a game concerned with asserting that games are a vehicle for storytelling that can and should do a lot more to remix the medium's affordances than it does now.
This is also just a really damn good survival horror game. It's genuinely scary and violent in a way that few games, I find, are able to be - reaching a sort of arthouse horror tenor that recognizes tropes, either leaning all the way in, or working to effectively subvert what's been wrung dry. Sound design, art direction, novel worldbuilding choices - they converge in such effectively unsettling ways.
Alan Wake II, when you become enmeshed in its illogical yet oddly contiguous world of postulations and terrors, is a new high-water mark for what AAA games can be. The ambition on display here is so well and truly beyond the overwhelming majority of its peers.
But this is also an extremely flawed game at its core, on a gameplay level. The combat is a major sore spot, significantly lacking enemy variety to the point of any sense of threat dissipating - the extremely limited foes all require the same rinse & repeat strategies. But these monster closets can become unnecessarily punishing when the checkpointing feels all sorts of wrong, forcing you to retread unskippable dialogues before retrying an encounter after those exchanges, in the worst moments.
Navigating the world can be a chore as well, constantly brushing against an unhelpful map and a world that - both intentionally and unintentionally - gets you turned around even when you backtrack through the same environments end for end, time and time again.
These issues wouldn't be so apparent if the game was 10ish hours long instead of 15 about, a pace that's further hampered by a narrative-switching structure that gives you all to much freedom at points. It often left me feeling more confused than empowered.
So there are doubtlessly a lot of issues with Alan Wake II, many of which aren't in the game's contemporaries. But those titles aren't attempting to be anywhere as boundary-pushing or inventive as this. Alan Wake II falls short because it tries VERY HARD to be more than you'd expect from a modern survival horror title, a modern AAA title overall. And in this case, I value that creative intent far more than I magnify its mechanical issues.
This is a flawed masterwork, but perhaps the most important and necessary game of 2023.