This one is right up there with Baldur’s Gate 3 for the top spot of the year. This is easily Remedy’s best game, and their most ambitious one yet, which is saying a lot considering their near perfect, endlessly fascinating, track record. Alan Wake 2 is also, next to Immortality, the most Lynchian game I’ve ever played. There are very clear influences from Twin Peaks the Return, Inland Empire and Lost Highway. It’s a game that purely operates on dream logic and embraces the impossible, something that I very much love to see in a medium where pretty much anything can be done and where games on this scale tend to stick to the overly familiar. All of this is just to state that I loved this game and that it’s pretty much tailor-made for my tastes and interests in art. I’m looking forward to playing the new game plus mode that was recently added, once the DLCs drop and some time has passed.
On a technical level this might very well be the new photoreal graphics ceiling in the medium of videogames. It looks consistently amazing and stylized in just the right places, and it runs pretty much flawlessly on PC. It also achieves some really impressive stuff in regards to changing up the look and layout of levels instantly and the usage of interactable diegetic menus.
The overall story is amazing. Remedy really aimed high here and nailed it. It mixes all of the stuff they’ve toyed with before into an endlessly surprising and engaging experience. It leans heavily into horror, and it succeeds in being a genuinely disturbing game. There are a couple of set pieces that really stand out in terms of quality and novelty, but I believe that it manages to maintain a pretty solid line of excellence all throughout the game. And as expected, awesome original music and impactful sound design. I also absolutely adore the cross referencing of their own games, even when they don't have the rights to them, genius level stuff at play here.
I’m not fully sold on the “free switching between campaigns” concept yet. It’s a cool idea on paper to allow players that freedom, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter all that much, and it will probably have an impact on the overall pacing of the game for some players. In my case, I didn’t have that issue, as I switched back and forth every couple of chapters, but I can see players going through an entire campaign before switching back and having a weird, unbalanced, experience by the end. I like pacing to be a bit more authored in these cases.
Pacing does suffer a bit if you decide to engage with the collectibles as I did. The game tends to lose momentum if you decide to run back to previously explored areas to check out newly available spots for collectibles and loot. Moving around is quite a slow process and it shows when retreading places that aren’t all that big really. Luckily, puzzles are mostly fun and well implemented, and most collectibles have actual weight, as they are necessary for character and weapon upgrades or just have some fun story tidbits.
The survival horror genre is also present in its approach to combat, which is probably the weakest part of the game. Somehow the Alan Wake games are the only Remedy games where the combat isn’t a standout element. I think the issues here are how the characters control and how the combat encounters are set up in relation to said control of the player character. Alan and Saga are both quite slow to react to players’ input, and animations for everything take a while, which on its own adds to the overall tension of the combat encounters. Shooting feels good, but aiming is not precise and I found it hard to line up at times.
The way the character controls and resources are spread out feels like the game should be approached like an early Resident Evil or Silent Hill game, where most combat should be avoided when possible. The issue is that enemies here tend to swarm the player and approach quite fast. Differently than in Alan Wake 1, dodging is weightier, slower, and harder to time right, which means that when encountering groups of enemies that will run at the player you’ll have a really hard time trying not to die. I ended up overcoming plenty of these encounters by just remembering the order in which enemies would show up to kill me and nuking them before, which kinda kills the pacing of those encounters and sections too.
The traditional survival horror approach to combat isn’t all that feasible neither, as enemies catch up to the player quickly and tend to follow for a long time. Even if you manage to find a safe spot they’ll still be there when you come out.
I died plenty while playing in normal difficulty and checkpoints are pretty spaced out. Another slight issue that affects the pace of the overall experience.
Still, it’s pretty much a perfect game that I loved from beginning to end. I couldn’t be more curious about whatever Remedy is making next.
I think it would be fascinating to see Sam Lake play Max Payne in the new remakes like he played Alex Casey here, it would be such a full circle moment. Remedy, please keep making weird shit just for me.
On a technical level this might very well be the new photoreal graphics ceiling in the medium of videogames. It looks consistently amazing and stylized in just the right places, and it runs pretty much flawlessly on PC. It also achieves some really impressive stuff in regards to changing up the look and layout of levels instantly and the usage of interactable diegetic menus.
The overall story is amazing. Remedy really aimed high here and nailed it. It mixes all of the stuff they’ve toyed with before into an endlessly surprising and engaging experience. It leans heavily into horror, and it succeeds in being a genuinely disturbing game. There are a couple of set pieces that really stand out in terms of quality and novelty, but I believe that it manages to maintain a pretty solid line of excellence all throughout the game. And as expected, awesome original music and impactful sound design. I also absolutely adore the cross referencing of their own games, even when they don't have the rights to them, genius level stuff at play here.
I’m not fully sold on the “free switching between campaigns” concept yet. It’s a cool idea on paper to allow players that freedom, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter all that much, and it will probably have an impact on the overall pacing of the game for some players. In my case, I didn’t have that issue, as I switched back and forth every couple of chapters, but I can see players going through an entire campaign before switching back and having a weird, unbalanced, experience by the end. I like pacing to be a bit more authored in these cases.
Pacing does suffer a bit if you decide to engage with the collectibles as I did. The game tends to lose momentum if you decide to run back to previously explored areas to check out newly available spots for collectibles and loot. Moving around is quite a slow process and it shows when retreading places that aren’t all that big really. Luckily, puzzles are mostly fun and well implemented, and most collectibles have actual weight, as they are necessary for character and weapon upgrades or just have some fun story tidbits.
The survival horror genre is also present in its approach to combat, which is probably the weakest part of the game. Somehow the Alan Wake games are the only Remedy games where the combat isn’t a standout element. I think the issues here are how the characters control and how the combat encounters are set up in relation to said control of the player character. Alan and Saga are both quite slow to react to players’ input, and animations for everything take a while, which on its own adds to the overall tension of the combat encounters. Shooting feels good, but aiming is not precise and I found it hard to line up at times.
The way the character controls and resources are spread out feels like the game should be approached like an early Resident Evil or Silent Hill game, where most combat should be avoided when possible. The issue is that enemies here tend to swarm the player and approach quite fast. Differently than in Alan Wake 1, dodging is weightier, slower, and harder to time right, which means that when encountering groups of enemies that will run at the player you’ll have a really hard time trying not to die. I ended up overcoming plenty of these encounters by just remembering the order in which enemies would show up to kill me and nuking them before, which kinda kills the pacing of those encounters and sections too.
The traditional survival horror approach to combat isn’t all that feasible neither, as enemies catch up to the player quickly and tend to follow for a long time. Even if you manage to find a safe spot they’ll still be there when you come out.
I died plenty while playing in normal difficulty and checkpoints are pretty spaced out. Another slight issue that affects the pace of the overall experience.
Still, it’s pretty much a perfect game that I loved from beginning to end. I couldn’t be more curious about whatever Remedy is making next.
I think it would be fascinating to see Sam Lake play Max Payne in the new remakes like he played Alex Casey here, it would be such a full circle moment. Remedy, please keep making weird shit just for me.