It's been 13 years since the cliff-hanger ending of Alan Wake and AW2 was well worth the wait. It's the result of 13 years of lessons learned, refining the formula, and Remedy perfecting their craft to produce a thrilling, innovative, and mind bending story that had me glued from start to finish.
The game cycles between 2 main stories, FBI agents Saga Anderson and Alex Casey investigating a cult at Bright Falls and Alan Wake trying to escape the dark place. Both stories have 10 chapters and you can play them alternating or one then the other. Both stories are intertwined and give one another context but it's difficult to get into more detail without spoilers, needless to say the story threads are beautifully woven into a lattice of narrative that ties everything together, fills in past blanks, and leaves a few interesting loose threads to explore in the future.
AW2 has, hands down, one of the most intricate and well crafted plots I've seen, juggling the meta-narrative with post-modern deconstruction of stories within stories in ways that I could gush about embarrassingly for hours. Granted it can get complicated in places but if you're the kind of person who enjoys a deep, tangled, paranormal thriller then you're in for a treat. If you found the first game too narrative heavy then your mileage may vary as this one follows a deeply cinematic streak with a hefty portion of in-world media to soak in. Similar to AW1 you have a novel's worth of writing to read, radio shows, music, and TV-skits recorded with the real actors who play the cast of characters in the game akin to Control. If you enjoyed that rich world building you're in for a treat!
As for gameplay, it's a fusion of classic Silent Hill and modern Resident Evil bringing the best of both worlds along with Remedy's original recipe, plus they've learned well from their past mistakes. We see a return of the light mechanics, burning off the darkness and then shooting enemies, and while yes the combat is still simple, repetitive, and enemies only have a small variety, combat is kept interesting with a variety of toys/weapons to use, and then broken up by the huge variety of other things to do. Puzzles, exploration, collectibles, conversations, and the stand-out Writers Room / Mind Place mechanics. So when you do have combat it's not around long and doesn't overstay it's welcome like in past games.
The writers room and mind place are new features which each gamify the narrative in different ways giving Saga and Wake's gameplay entirely different feels. Saga has 'the mind place' which is a room in her mind represented as a physical space you walk around, where you can review collectibles, manage upgrades, and track the many twisting narrative threads on an evidence board, pinning up plot points, characters, and evidence as you investigate the mystery, tied together with string and punctuated with Saga's thoughts and conclusions as you go. It makes for a fun way to keep track of everything and identify where to go or what to do next in the 3 major locations around Bright Falls.
Meanwhile Wake has 'the writers room', where he's trapped in the darkness and trying to write his way out. The physical space of the darkness transforms based on his writing, so in each chapter he superimposes a thriller story over his imagined reality and you use the plot points to physically transform the space. A hotel ballroom can host a cult meeting or a ritual murder scene - each with different clues to discover and different paths blocked off. This fractal narrative-within-narrative-within-narrative structure is inspiring to see implemented so naturally and turns the world itself into a unique and interesting puzzle to solve.
AW2 is a refreshing creative vision that is badly needed these days. It captures the atmosphere of horror beautifully and marries media in such creative ways while telling a story in ways no other medium can - this is what video games were made for. On top of that it combines an outstanding story, amazing writing and cinematography, innovative gameplay, a vast supply of world enriching collectibles, stirring performances from the actors, incredible music, a return of everything iconic that Remedy fans loved from the past games, the best graphics I've ever seen, exciting new twists, turns, characters, and developments... what does the game get wrong? Honestly just a handful of glitches, a couple of lip syncing issues, and having to select the only item that works with an interactable from a list.
At the very least it's fair to say that Remedy gets so much right here that its few flaws are easily overlooked. Given the sheer quality of Remedy's content and the hard work on display Alan Wake 2 is definitely my pick for game of the year, and with even more content on the way I can't wait to see what's next. It's amazing to see a company do AAA games justice now more than ever, producing genuine works of art rather than revenue engines. The spirit of true game design is alive in Remedy and I'm proud to support them.
Onnea ja hyvin tehty!
The game cycles between 2 main stories, FBI agents Saga Anderson and Alex Casey investigating a cult at Bright Falls and Alan Wake trying to escape the dark place. Both stories have 10 chapters and you can play them alternating or one then the other. Both stories are intertwined and give one another context but it's difficult to get into more detail without spoilers, needless to say the story threads are beautifully woven into a lattice of narrative that ties everything together, fills in past blanks, and leaves a few interesting loose threads to explore in the future.
AW2 has, hands down, one of the most intricate and well crafted plots I've seen, juggling the meta-narrative with post-modern deconstruction of stories within stories in ways that I could gush about embarrassingly for hours. Granted it can get complicated in places but if you're the kind of person who enjoys a deep, tangled, paranormal thriller then you're in for a treat. If you found the first game too narrative heavy then your mileage may vary as this one follows a deeply cinematic streak with a hefty portion of in-world media to soak in. Similar to AW1 you have a novel's worth of writing to read, radio shows, music, and TV-skits recorded with the real actors who play the cast of characters in the game akin to Control. If you enjoyed that rich world building you're in for a treat!
As for gameplay, it's a fusion of classic Silent Hill and modern Resident Evil bringing the best of both worlds along with Remedy's original recipe, plus they've learned well from their past mistakes. We see a return of the light mechanics, burning off the darkness and then shooting enemies, and while yes the combat is still simple, repetitive, and enemies only have a small variety, combat is kept interesting with a variety of toys/weapons to use, and then broken up by the huge variety of other things to do. Puzzles, exploration, collectibles, conversations, and the stand-out Writers Room / Mind Place mechanics. So when you do have combat it's not around long and doesn't overstay it's welcome like in past games.
The writers room and mind place are new features which each gamify the narrative in different ways giving Saga and Wake's gameplay entirely different feels. Saga has 'the mind place' which is a room in her mind represented as a physical space you walk around, where you can review collectibles, manage upgrades, and track the many twisting narrative threads on an evidence board, pinning up plot points, characters, and evidence as you investigate the mystery, tied together with string and punctuated with Saga's thoughts and conclusions as you go. It makes for a fun way to keep track of everything and identify where to go or what to do next in the 3 major locations around Bright Falls.
Meanwhile Wake has 'the writers room', where he's trapped in the darkness and trying to write his way out. The physical space of the darkness transforms based on his writing, so in each chapter he superimposes a thriller story over his imagined reality and you use the plot points to physically transform the space. A hotel ballroom can host a cult meeting or a ritual murder scene - each with different clues to discover and different paths blocked off. This fractal narrative-within-narrative-within-narrative structure is inspiring to see implemented so naturally and turns the world itself into a unique and interesting puzzle to solve.
AW2 is a refreshing creative vision that is badly needed these days. It captures the atmosphere of horror beautifully and marries media in such creative ways while telling a story in ways no other medium can - this is what video games were made for. On top of that it combines an outstanding story, amazing writing and cinematography, innovative gameplay, a vast supply of world enriching collectibles, stirring performances from the actors, incredible music, a return of everything iconic that Remedy fans loved from the past games, the best graphics I've ever seen, exciting new twists, turns, characters, and developments... what does the game get wrong? Honestly just a handful of glitches, a couple of lip syncing issues, and having to select the only item that works with an interactable from a list.
At the very least it's fair to say that Remedy gets so much right here that its few flaws are easily overlooked. Given the sheer quality of Remedy's content and the hard work on display Alan Wake 2 is definitely my pick for game of the year, and with even more content on the way I can't wait to see what's next. It's amazing to see a company do AAA games justice now more than ever, producing genuine works of art rather than revenue engines. The spirit of true game design is alive in Remedy and I'm proud to support them.
Onnea ja hyvin tehty!