The original Alan Wake launched in 2010 and immediately built canon within its story. Alan Wake 2 launches thirteen years later with a completely different-looking Alan Wake who has been out of this reality for exactly that long. Developed by Remedy Entertainment and just in time for Halloween, the survival horror title is the perfect game to experience for the holiday. Alan Wake 2 keeps the core ideas intact from the original while doing much more by introducing a new character with character swapping and a well directed and produced story, which is where the focus is as compared to something like a Resident Evil or Silent Hill title. Alan Wake 2 brings some of the best atmosphere and storytelling to a horror experience while providing possibly the best visuals seen in a video game to date.
Alan Wake 2 introduces a new character named Saga Anderson, a FBI agent sent out to investigate a strange murder in the woods. This unravels into her first cult investigation alongside agent Alex Casey, who was the actor in the original Max Payne game. He even seemingly throws out a facial animation Easter egg early on. A former FBI agent, who was presumed missing, comes back from the dead as there is a paranormal aspect to the enemy encounters in the game. Known as the Taken, some animals even come back to life as light is the key to fighting the darkness in the entire story.
Story progression for Saga is tied to her case board, which will require the player to properly place photos to help unravel multiple cases. This comes off as tacked on as there isn’t any strategy to it as opposed to just having to do it. The same with going through manuscripts and character profiling, which kicks in the same cutscene, but dives deeper into the story behind the character encounters in the game. This is just one way of progression for the game, as eventually the ability to play as Alan Wake is enabled as Saga stumbles upon breaking him out of the Dark. There are two major settings for the game, as Saga takes place mainly in the Pacific Northwest and Wake in a non-reality New York City that’s creepy and helps to deliver the atmosphere that makes this series so great. Both characters have specific upgrades with Wake having Words of Power, which are unlocked by shining his flashlight on yellow word circles, as Saga will require the collection of Manuscript Fragments to unlock upgrades for weapons in the Mind Place, which is her hub. Each character has their hub to help progress their story, and characters can eventually be swapped between in save rooms.
The story and gameplay in Alan Wake 2 are a slow burn, much like reading a novel, which checks out since Alan Wake is an author. The way the story plays out revolves around his writing and goes deeper and deeper as it continues to pull the player in. Early on, it’s surface level, but the way characters and scenarios intertwine with each reality and then that reality changes shows how well written and directed the game and story is. It’s all excellently presented, but also encompasses all this into a well-balanced survival horror experience that has players solving puzzles, backtracking, exploring and conserving ammo. There aren’t a lot of enemy encounters early as the focus is on setting up the story, but the game continues to get more entertaining. There’s one specific scenario with Wake that has never been done in a horror game before that features full-motion video, and it’s utterly ridiculous in a good way. This scenario is the quintessential of psychological horror, but much more on the psychological side than the horror side, and the music is amazing if you’re a fan of Finnish metal.
There are a good bit of recognizable characters in the game. You’ll see Max Payne, Lamplighter and Shiva from The League to name a few. Wake, played by Ilkka Villi, looks like the Finnish version of Jake Gyllenhaal, and is an extreme change from the original game. Wake’s acting in the game is as expected as he comes off as the typical author in a horror movie type that shows some emotion. Saga, played by Melanie Liburd, tends to just accept everything that’s going on without question and doesn’t show much emotion outside of anything related with her daughter. I would just think this being your first cult case, the fact that you discovered a well-known author showed up out of thin air, and a dead person came to life and vanished, would generate some reaction. The only real disappointment in the game is the overall voice acting. It’s not terrible, but no one is winning any Oscars.
The action, while not superbly abundant, controls excellently. Shooting enemies is satisfying. There are some boss encounters and higher than normal enemies, and these enemies will have weak spots. The flashlight is used to stun enemies and can also be used for puzzles. Players will need to access maps in their hub for assistance and points of interest. Inventory management will also come into play the deeper the game is played along with the ability to dodge attacks and do a 180-degree turn. Both characters do run rather slowly as the game is played from a behind-the-shoulder view, which has become the norm in the genre. While the beginning is more of a focus on story, the game lasts for several hours and presents a good balance of all the elements in the end. The story continues to evolve in a crazy way that begins to have the player questioning the environment themselves. I will also note that there are well-timed jump scares, and they are few and far between and not expected.
The elephant in the room leading up to the release of Alan Wake 2 have been the PC hardware requirements. This was reviewed on PC and not on console, and the game is exclusive to the Epic Games Store. It’s safe to say that this will be the new benchmark for GPUs going forward, and there’s a reason NVIDIA is including the game with its RTX 40 series GPUs currently as a promotion. I will say that no matter what setting the game is played on, it’s utterly gorgeous. If you have the option to enable ray tracing, and especially path tracing, this game is the best example of how this technology works. Reflection of lighting, especially neon lighting in New York, is amazing. This game is meant specifically for 40-series cards to take advantage of everything. Running this with an RTX 3080 did enable me to turn on some things at a playable frame rate. You will most likely need DLSS/FSR to make this run comfortably if on anything outside of the RTX 40 series.
The graphics settings are streamlined and the system even provides the internal resolution the game runs at on the different DLSS settings. I did receive a good bit of texture pop-in in the distance, some frame instability, and some reflection bugs. This can possibly be attributed to playing on two different GPU driver versions and three different patched versions as I was prompted for two updates during the review period. I was happy getting 40 FPS at 4K medium settings with low ray tracing settings on the RTX 3080, but honestly this game makes me want to upgrade. I believe that this last-gen card and its lack of VRAM are holding back me back. It plays smooth enough and changing different DLSS options didn’t net a significant change in FPS.
Outside of the hardware requirements, the actual visual details of the game are mindblowing. The mesh on materials is ridiculously lifelike, including the sweater that Saga wears in her hub. There’s a ton of foliage and it’s worth noting I did receive better performance in Wake’s environments on his playthroughs versus the woods and outdoors with Saga’s. Trees all move with the wind and the lighting creates the perfect ambiance rather it be in the outdoors or in the city. The woods during sunset will be borderline dark and it brings the player in. The most impressive are the faces and the facial animations. There’s no other game better at facial animations talking. The skin on the models is extremely detailed. There are some scenes that transition to real video and the only way I could tell the difference was the fact that I was monitoring frame rates and it jumped way up. Hair details are also some of the best there is no matter the type of hair. All of it looks as real as it gets, and the game is absolutely beautiful.
The sound completes everything that Alan Wake 2 has to offer. The sound direction and design is utterly perfect for the atmosphere. Music is ambient or silent with just sound effects at certain times. While the voice acting is what it is, the quality of the voices are excellent. Gun shots are loud yet satisfying, while the sound effects involving the enemies are scary. What music is in the game is good needs its own playlist. There’s a radio that plays music that is tied into the story, and the music is great and varied, including Finnish metal. There are even television commercials in the game to go with all the full motion video that offers excellent sound quality as well.
The game needs a Photo Mode and is missing this at launch, but it will be added later. Remedy is adding a New Game+ that will launch in about a month. Players will retain all unlocked weapons and upgrades, a new Nightmare difficulty, new alternate narratives that includes six new Manuscript pages and new video content. Along with that, players can look forward to two new expansions. Night Springs will release in late Spring 2024 and The Lake House will come later on after that, so there’s post-launch content coming to further support the game.
Closing Comments:
Alan Wake 2 is the perfect release for Halloween as it presents a psychological horror movie into video game format. Fans of the original title will thoroughly enjoy what this game has to offer as it keeps its core design while offering much deeper story content. The design with the intersecting character arcs and the ability to basically play two different playthroughs side-by-side offer a new element to survival horror (it’s not the Resident Evil Zero zapping system). No matter the hardware, if the game can be run on PC, it will look gorgeous as this is possibly the best-looking game ever released. The atmosphere speaks for itself and the controls and gameplay further add to the experience. While not near as action heavy as say Resident Evil, Alan Wake 2 takes several aspects of the survival horror genre and balances them together, albeit more story-heavy to begin with. Outside of some mediocre voice acting, this game plays out like the visual horror novel that those types of fans have hoped for, and it’s simply beautiful to look at.
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 debuted in October 2023, nearly fifteen years after its predecessor first hit stores. Remedy’s survival-horror game tells a dual-protagonist story, with one part following the eponymous writer while the other revolving around an agent named Saga Anderson.
