Originally I was going to dock points for the game feeling a little derivative, "it's just Dark Souls again", but I quickly began to understand that was the point. The game is saying something about the constant cycle of Souls games and the yearning players have for the same thing over and over again. The game often resentful and angry at times but still indulgent, appreciative and reflective too and I think it's creatively pretty beautiful. It uses familiar places and iconography and uses is it not as an epic reference but a gut punch. So many of the bosses revolve around people reanimated, puppeteered around, not allowed to simply die. The game begins to fold in on itself, it becomes incompressible and to people who love writing up comprehensive lore guides on wiki pages, that must feel often frustrating, but that's the point. Documenting every single corner of the Souls world is missing the point, it's not about what is, it's about what it's trying to say. It's about the themes and use of characters, not their entire backstory chalked up on a web page. The game is often cynical in that regard but it doesn't let that warp how the game is designed, it's still a Dark Souls game, it's still a Miyazaki game, through and through. It's grand, it's gorgeous, it's designed to perfection and it weaves all it's messages and themes together with gameplay and level design that is some of the most refined in the industry.

I love this game, as a video game and as a piece of art with a deep rooted message, the message of course being to let go, to let things die, sometimes an ending is the point. But where one thing ends, another begins and that will never flourish, a new spark can never be lit, unless the old flame is allowed to extinguish.

I need to preface this review with the fact I ADORE Alan Wake 2, as well as the first game and Control, but this DLC pack was absolutely middle of the road, totally fine but nothing greater. Thematically and symbolically it’s doing what Alan Wake always does and that’s all pretty good. Each one is better than the last with the 3rd being a standout concept with presentation that was genuinely fun to explore and allows greater context to the Remedy Universe and the previous episodes. But one episode being pretty good doesn’t make up for the others being pretty throwaway scenarios. None of it is as meaningful or insightful as their other stuff, especially the base game of AW2, but not bad by any means and allows for a reassessment of what these games are doing. The use of particularly characters for particular theming, especially in the context of Alan Wake is great and like I said the concept explored by Episode 3 is particularly tantalising.

However, it’s mechanically dull, just shy of 2 hours in total and amounts to shooting stuff with no sense of tension because all your weapons and gear is super over powered, and level design that’s ultimately boring and shallow in areas we’ve visited before in the base game. There’s just nothing about it that makes it significantly worth playing as opposed to just watching online or reading about. With AW2, the experience was the thing, it was tense, thrilling, mind bending and beautiful. And that’s not even to mention the challenge of solving puzzles whilst surviving. These DLC chapters are just stuff happening, interesting concepts with tasks that are the most basic and amount to walking with pressing buttons with little thought, it’s incredibly passive, and while the stuff happening does have narrative merit, it’s not deep enough and, with design this shallow, it’s really not worth playing at all to be totally honest. Which is a shame.