Alan Wake II 2023
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
2 days
Last played
November 18, 2023
First played
October 29, 2023
Platforms Played
Alan Wake II understands the power, control, and allure of the federal bureau of investigations.
When power is wielded, it is often done through obfuscation. In chapter 6 of Wake's side of the game, you wander a few floors of a hotel. Stumbling upon evocations, Wake enters a writer's room and uses new artistic ideas to change physical surroundings and narrative before and afters. Alan Wake is in the Dark Place, a subconscious usually only glinted at in nightmares but is now our protagonist’s waking every moment. This concept is a straightforward, if writerly, flourish: dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin, often merging into one another. Alan Wake II attempts to determine the affect these nightmares have on the waking. Back at the hotel: Wake summons a cult, then the literal Devil, attempting to cohere a violent story of murder and death that allows you to progress through the game.
The unintended consequences of Wake's writing permeates the game. A cult or a devil murdered the star of an immersive hotel play. Who leads who isn't as relevant as yet another superfluous story to get to the ending Wake thinks he needs to write in order rescue himself. What choice is there - as the game reminds us at every turn - but to "go darker"? Another bullet needs to be shot against faceless dwellers whispering your name. You might run around the monsters with little to no impact on the various proceedings the same way a book’s exposition is lost in translation to a screen adaptation. Screams of real or fictional people crashing and burning in a subway and the attendees of a play lose their lives to a fictional story, one bent by the clacking of a time writer or twines of red string puncturing together evidence of an FBI agent’s case file.
By trying to do better, dreams are often swept aside, pushed forcefully against or otherwise ignored. As Saga Anderson, you psychically manipulate your own psyche and those around you to advance forward. In doing so Anderson ends up deeper in a nightmare of her own making: is it truth or fiction that she got a divorce, that she causally is to blame for her kid’s death, and that nothing seems to be going right in your case even as more evidence is surfaced? But more evidence reveals more loose ends and for every node on the psychic crime board, more potentials raised. Who are the people around you: Sam’s motives, Wake’s reason for rage, your daughter’s personhood, and does Alan Wake II care, or is it interested in moving towards a non-ending?
Sequel bait and verseification dampers the narrative proceedings. Instead of a satisfying ending, a post credits scene reveals an alive Alice, having faked her own suicide. She said she orchestrated the whole thing. Can we believe her? Does it matter when the plots of the next Remedy games are still drafts and notecards on a whiteboard in a meeting room? Anything can change between now and then. The world’s largest corporations use their own multiverses to supersede much of culture and dominate conversation. Admittedly, in Alan Wake II these verse connections are fun and deeply referential to the point of absurdity instead of shlocky means to a team up ending, but cracks appear to be seeping in.
Art and destiny is intertwined deeply. On Wake's first loop through Mr. Door's late night show, a book Wake did not write is revealed. Over and over again, the dual protagonists of Alan Wake 2 are reminded about the decisions they have or have not made and their fates. Wake didn't write Initiation, he wrote Return. Wake fell into a lake and the dark place, unsuccessfully honeymooning in a remote Pacific northwestern town. Wake didn't kill his wife, Scratch did. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero had to lose so Wake dies. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero has to suffer so Anderson’s daughter really is dead. What is a story but an extravagant spiral?
Through obfuscation, dreams are shrouded and nightmares are made coherent. Alan Wake II gives no straightforward answers because it has none. The dream to create and continue working has come crashing down on artistic intent, neat narratives. Keeping everything open ended makes for satisfying TikToks in the future where continuous small connections between two games can be made. The FBI, FBC, and the wider police force alongside them who populate this game wield power without checks and balances, concealing truths until they are purposefully confusing, deciding on the fly what and who is right versus wrong, what will or will not show up in the next Remedy game.
*As an overall aside that doesn't tie into the more lit crit attemptings of this review I must complain about technology and our own climate apocalypse. Remedy is real fucking annoying about "cutting edge tech". A little more than a year ago I bought a 1,200 dollar computer, marked down from 1,500 in a sale. This rinky dinky computer has a 3050 graphics card. I could not play this game natively on that very nice, very new PC. There is no reason for this. I don't give a shit about graphics or cutting edge tech. Neither should you. Our planet is burning as we continue to harvest rare earth materials while putting yesterday's rare earth materials into the trash.
When power is wielded, it is often done through obfuscation. In chapter 6 of Wake's side of the game, you wander a few floors of a hotel. Stumbling upon evocations, Wake enters a writer's room and uses new artistic ideas to change physical surroundings and narrative before and afters. Alan Wake is in the Dark Place, a subconscious usually only glinted at in nightmares but is now our protagonist’s waking every moment. This concept is a straightforward, if writerly, flourish: dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin, often merging into one another. Alan Wake II attempts to determine the affect these nightmares have on the waking. Back at the hotel: Wake summons a cult, then the literal Devil, attempting to cohere a violent story of murder and death that allows you to progress through the game.
The unintended consequences of Wake's writing permeates the game. A cult or a devil murdered the star of an immersive hotel play. Who leads who isn't as relevant as yet another superfluous story to get to the ending Wake thinks he needs to write in order rescue himself. What choice is there - as the game reminds us at every turn - but to "go darker"? Another bullet needs to be shot against faceless dwellers whispering your name. You might run around the monsters with little to no impact on the various proceedings the same way a book’s exposition is lost in translation to a screen adaptation. Screams of real or fictional people crashing and burning in a subway and the attendees of a play lose their lives to a fictional story, one bent by the clacking of a time writer or twines of red string puncturing together evidence of an FBI agent’s case file.
By trying to do better, dreams are often swept aside, pushed forcefully against or otherwise ignored. As Saga Anderson, you psychically manipulate your own psyche and those around you to advance forward. In doing so Anderson ends up deeper in a nightmare of her own making: is it truth or fiction that she got a divorce, that she causally is to blame for her kid’s death, and that nothing seems to be going right in your case even as more evidence is surfaced? But more evidence reveals more loose ends and for every node on the psychic crime board, more potentials raised. Who are the people around you: Sam’s motives, Wake’s reason for rage, your daughter’s personhood, and does Alan Wake II care, or is it interested in moving towards a non-ending?
Sequel bait and verseification dampers the narrative proceedings. Instead of a satisfying ending, a post credits scene reveals an alive Alice, having faked her own suicide. She said she orchestrated the whole thing. Can we believe her? Does it matter when the plots of the next Remedy games are still drafts and notecards on a whiteboard in a meeting room? Anything can change between now and then. The world’s largest corporations use their own multiverses to supersede much of culture and dominate conversation. Admittedly, in Alan Wake II these verse connections are fun and deeply referential to the point of absurdity instead of shlocky means to a team up ending, but cracks appear to be seeping in.
Art and destiny is intertwined deeply. On Wake's first loop through Mr. Door's late night show, a book Wake did not write is revealed. Over and over again, the dual protagonists of Alan Wake 2 are reminded about the decisions they have or have not made and their fates. Wake didn't write Initiation, he wrote Return. Wake fell into a lake and the dark place, unsuccessfully honeymooning in a remote Pacific northwestern town. Wake didn't kill his wife, Scratch did. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero had to lose so Wake dies. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero has to suffer so Anderson’s daughter really is dead. What is a story but an extravagant spiral?
Through obfuscation, dreams are shrouded and nightmares are made coherent. Alan Wake II gives no straightforward answers because it has none. The dream to create and continue working has come crashing down on artistic intent, neat narratives. Keeping everything open ended makes for satisfying TikToks in the future where continuous small connections between two games can be made. The FBI, FBC, and the wider police force alongside them who populate this game wield power without checks and balances, concealing truths until they are purposefully confusing, deciding on the fly what and who is right versus wrong, what will or will not show up in the next Remedy game.
*As an overall aside that doesn't tie into the more lit crit attemptings of this review I must complain about technology and our own climate apocalypse. Remedy is real fucking annoying about "cutting edge tech". A little more than a year ago I bought a 1,200 dollar computer, marked down from 1,500 in a sale. This rinky dinky computer has a 3050 graphics card. I could not play this game natively on that very nice, very new PC. There is no reason for this. I don't give a shit about graphics or cutting edge tech. Neither should you. Our planet is burning as we continue to harvest rare earth materials while putting yesterday's rare earth materials into the trash.