Remedy Entertainment has been busily finishing things up with their latest surreal survival horror game, Alan Wake 2. Can one ever truly be prepared to take on The Dark Place again after all this time? We managed to sneak through Los Angeles traffic for a press event to get some hands-on time with the much-anticipated sequel, and have our impressions ready for you now.
A Fresh Face
Our session saw us start with the new protagonist, FBI Agent Saga Anderson, as she is deep in the woods and exploring the quaint mountain town of Watery. This is her third mission – the introduction was not spoiled for us. This area featured a “live” singer at a local bar, and started off simply enough. We were trying to find more information on the whereabouts of “The Clicker,” a cut-off light switch that Alan Wake had when he was a child. After talking to the locals, a lead can be found that leads Saga to a place known as Coffee World, a locally-owned and terribly-themed amusement park. You can guess what its theme is from the name. The whole time, other characters whom Saga has never met before talk with her as if she is a local, even helping her find the keys to “her” trailer. It’s all surreal and trippy, and there are of course Taken enemies to fight. Not that we needed evidence that the game was in active development, but we were warned ahead of time to not mess with a cleaning station that looked like it was ripped straight out of Control. This seemingly innocuous object was actually how players are allowed to change characters – but the mechanic had a bug that would likely cause our demo to glitch out in session-ending ways — something which we’re hoping will get fixed before launch.
Saga brings with her the same combat mechanics as Alan, but also something called a Mind Place. It exists as a construct in Saga’s mind, and is a 3D location the player can walk around in, at almost any point while playing as Saga. It’s part of the pause menu, in fact. However, the world outside of this Mind Place continues to move along, so the player has to be wary about using this when in combat or near enemies. Alan Wake has a Writer’s Room, which is a similar space that the player can walk around in and perhaps figure something out to move things along. Saga can use a case board to intuit the connection between two seemingly unrelated pieces of information. You sift through various clues collected by picking items up, talking with people, or observing events. Then, you literally pin photos and notes on a board, and if they are placed in the right spot, Saga explains the connection.
The Plot Thickens
Alan, meanwhile, has access to a Plot Board. As his adventure progresses, Alan will remember different Scenes of the area he currently finds himself in. Then, by performing certain actions, interacting with, or finding some items can unlock Plot Elements. These are descriptions that can be applied to the Scenes he has unlocked. While we didn’t have a lot of time with this particular mechanic, we were able to make places haunted by discovering a plot element. This has the effect of changing the look and feel of a Scene, while also altering it in some way that may help Alan to find a way forward. This is no doubt possible thanks to Remedy’s work in Control, where the levels would alter themselves right in front of you, and it will be interesting to see all the different ways that Alan’s surroundings can be changed by the mere application of some words.
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Combat has taken on a more central role in Alan Wake 2, though of course it is not the only way you progress as puzzles are also present. With a Resident Evil-like grid-based inventory system, resource management will no doubt be crucial in higher difficulty settings or later in the campaign. Besides a new melee attack, both Alan and Saga have access to pistols, shotguns, and more, and so you won’t feel so helpless against the monsters of the darkness. Light still plays an important factor in fights, as you can use your flashlight to perform a charged attack which temporarily stuns most enemies. In addition, most enemies have a dark aura about them which acts like a shield against most damage, thus necessitating that you remember to wield your flashlight as a weapon ahead of pumping those enemies full of lead.
Survival of the Sanest
Games like Alan Wake take some time to get acclimated to, and it has been a couple of years since I last played Remedy’s last major non-remake release, Control. As we didn’t have all the time in the world (indeed, our play session was only a couple of hours in length, divided by an intermission as we transitioned from playing as Saga to playing as Alan), members of the development team were on-hand to help guide us through some of the game’s more abstract puzzles. And they definitely were abstract, requiring, for instance, the use of an “Angel Lamp” that Alan had in his possession to acquire a limited number of charges of light in order to change which version of the city he was currently walking through. My game glitched and my game’s UI was apparently not showing the number of charges collected; a known bug Remedy was due to fix prior to the game going gold.
Enemy encounters may be more bullet-filled than prior Alan Wake games, but there is still plenty of tension to be found with limited health and ammunition, fast enemies, and a finite inventory space. Another pre-release glitch we encountered prevented us from picking up items even when we could hold more of that particular item (such as healing items). Only by dropping an item already in our inventory could we then pick up what we wanted, even though we would only end up stacking it anyway. Dropping items also immediately removes them from the game, which feels like a last-generation feature and was a surprising limitation to keep in mind when deciding which items to keep, and which to leave behind.
Time to Get Excited
While we’ve experienced a few bugs here and there in our preview build, I won’t lose any sleep over it considering Remedy Entertainment’s track record. Inventory issue aside, the other issues seen were visual and did not detract from the experience. The game looks, sounds, and feels like an Alan Wake game, perhaps the best iteration yet thanks in no small part to the learnings acquired during the development of Remedy’s other titles such as Quantum Break and Control. It’s exciting to be able to finally get back into the mind of Alan Wake, and now, Saga Anderson, with some new mechanics to conquer and also cases to solve.
Graphically, Alan Wake 2 is a feast for the eyes. Of course, we were playing on PCs no doubt spec’d out with the latest CPU, RAM, M.2 SSDs, and RTX GPUs on the market, on 65-inch OLED TV sets. Even so, Remedy Entertainment has left the previous generation of consoles behind, so this no doubt raises the minimum fidelity of Alan Wake 2. Some environments looked incredibly realistic, especially Alan Wake’s mission when he walked around the city. Audio work is first-class: you’ll probably get more intense moments playing this game on a good pair of headphones, or at the very least a surround sound system.
Alan Wake 2 is on track to be the perfect kind of creepy, mind-bending game to take us into the holiday season when it launches on October 27. Some of its puzzles will stump gamers for a while, and in a single-player game that is part of the appeal. Get ready to set the stage for some delightfully eerie encounters that only Remedy knows how to craft best. Alan Wake 2 will release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles.
MP1st attended an invite-only preview event for Alan Wake 2, and the game was played on PC.