Alan Wake 2 Will Probably Go Down as One of My Favorite Games Ever

Prepare for Some Gushing

I can still remember playing Max Payne when I was a wee lad and thinking to myself, “Wow, this is so cool; I’m just flying around in bullet time shootin’ these fuckers. Video games are fucking rad.”

Here we are, over twenty years later, and Remedy has made their raddest game yet, and to make it even better, it’s entirely different from not only Max Payne but also Alan Wake 1. And, thanks to leaning heavily into horror aspects, it’s also different from everything else Remedy has done.

At its core, Alan Wake 2 is a survival horror game, and it pulls that genre off so well that it’ll make you wonder why it took Remedy so long to make a game like this. Leaning into horror also solves the main complaint about Alan Wake 1: that the game relied too much on repetitive combat sections in which you had to kill wave after wave of enemy. It replaces that with smaller combat encounters and plenty of puzzles.

The game feels like the perfect love child between Twin Peaks (one of my favorite shows) and season one of True Detective, set in a Resident Evil-feeling experience. It’s hard not to compare Alan Wake to TV shows because it draws so much inspiration from that medium; playing Alan Wake almost feels like playing episodes of a TV show—in the best possible way.

Remedy’s love of live-action helps that a lot. They’ve always integrated “real life” into their games, and in Alan Wake 2, they’ve struck that perfect balance. The live-action footage is integrated so well into Alan Wake 2, and it’s used for some of the most memorable moments in this game.

On top of all this, Alan Wake 2 builds on what Remedy is doing in terms of shared universes; that itself is fucking cool. I still remember how exciting it was to discover that Control and Alan Wake were in the same universe and that the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) had investigated the 2010 events in Bright Falls.

Alan Wake 2 builds on that even more, and the FBC also makes an appearance in this game—without spoiling too much. We’ll talk about the story more at the end. Max Payne and Quantum Break also receive easter eggs, homages, and indirect connections. But all that is tricky because Remedy doesn’t have the rights to those two games (yet, at least).

But the prospect of a “Remedy-verse” is enticing as fuck. In Alan Wake 2, the character of Alex Casey is basically an off-brand Max Payne—same face, same voice, different name. And in the Dark Place version of Alex Casey, he’s even wearing Max Payne’s clothes. It’s such a great call-back.

Two Worlds – Starkly Different, But Each Beautiful

Though the game is technically on the longer side (around 20 hours, longer if you go for 100% completion), it flies by. That’s partly thanks to splitting your time playing as the titular Alan Wake and Saga Anderson. She’s an FBI agent sent to Bright Falls to investigate some ritualistic murders in the small town. He’s a writer stuck in the Dark Place trying to find a way out.

In essence, there are almost two stories here, Alan’s and Saga’s; they are closely connected, and how they overlap and influence each other from a narrative perspective is really cool and interesting. But I’ll avoid spoilers … dun dun dun … for now.

The two locations are also starkly different. Saga has the beautiful, natural vibes of Washington, with trees and small-town life. There are three locations to visit here: Bright Falls, Watery, and Cauldron Lake. They feel like real areas people would live in. It would be a great place to vacation—if it weren’t for all the murdering and Taken.

Conversely, Alan’s in a nightmarish New York as seen through the eyes of the Dark Place. It’s basically the setting of every Alex Casey novel. Dark and gloomy—all the time. It’s stunning in its own way, with subways, winding rooftops, and a few other cool locations to explore. Shadows lurk around every corner, literally. Most are harmless, but some will reveal themselves to be Taken, and they will attack Alan.

One cool aspect of the Dark Place is, well, light. Early on, Alan will find a special lamp that will allow him to alter the “reality” of the Dark Place. With it, he can take the light from one light source, and move it to another. In the process, this rewrites reality and allows him to solve puzzles and get places he otherwise wouldn’t, like a writer changing the narrative. The game does a great job of making you feel like you’re playing as a writer during the Alan parts of the game.

And just like a story, Alan’s manuscript pages once again come into play. Only this time around, I feel like they work much more effectively. In the first game, they almost felt like easter eggs or a collectible, but here, they feel more integral to the plot.

Rather than Alan finding pages he’s written, it’s Saga who finds the manuscript pages. So, immediately, it’s a lot more eerie to be playing as someone finding the pages who doesn’t realize what they are, just that they seem to be predicting the future. It’s just another piece of the puzzle that Saga will need to use her investigatory prowess to figure out.

Saga, being an FBI agent, comes to Bright Falls to solve a crime, and what better way to solve a criminal case than by collecting evidence and putting it all together? She does this through her Mind Place, a place in her mind where she can collect her thoughts and use her case board to piece together evidence. It’s very cool.

Alan, too, has a special place in his mind he goes to: the Writer’s Room. There, he can work on putting together a story and changing reality in the Dark Place. It’s just another part of the game that makes you feel like Alan is actually a writer, and it’s a very enjoyable way to break up the pacing between fighting Taken, which Saga and Alan have to do a fair amount of.

Fewer Enemies, More Intimacy

Aside from the shift from action to survival horror, combat remains relatively similar to the first game. Use your flashlight to burn an enemy Taken’s darkness shield, and then unlead hot lead into them. Typically, you’re only fighting a handful of enemies at once, leading to much more intimate encounters. Ammo conservation feels pretty important, because running out sure sucks, but the game’s good about giving it to you when you need it.

Despite the game taking place in two separate realities, combat in both planes of existence remains similar. When you switch between Alan and Saga, there’s really not much that feels different to the player where combat’s concerned. Similar weapons, similar flashlights, similar headshots. Alan’s sections are perhaps a little spookier because you’re not sure which shadows are hostile, and which are harmless.

Once you burn an enemy’s darkness shield, their heart also becomes exposed as a weak spot. Shoot that, and you’re rewarded with a really graphic gore-splosion. The game, in general, is delightfully gory. As you damage the taken, layers of skin fall away to reveal internal musculature and organs. It’s great.

Combat remains relatively simple, but satisfying throughout the game. On normal, the game is never too difficult, although I am seriously looking forward to playing the game again on New Game+ on Nightmare difficulty (but more on that and other spoilers later).

Still, Alan Wake 2 is thrilling. The game is so dark, both lighting-wise and atmospherically, that even as someone who doesn’t ever really get scared at games, it’s hard to deny how tense some moments when you’re fighting Taken can be, especially when you’re already low on ammo, missing more shots than you’d like to admit, and desperately trying to reload.

Open, But Not Open World

Though Alan Wake 2 is definitely not an open-world game, it presents you with enough adventuring across its different locations that there’s plenty to explore and discover.

The game goes pretty hard with collectibles, not to its detriment, but it’s probably where Alan Wake 2 feels the most “game-like.” Some of the items you can find grant you upgrades for your arsenal, from flashlights to weapons, which feels very superfluous.

In my time with the game (upwards of 20 hours), I only collected a handful of the many upgrades, and not many of them seemed super useful. Granted, once New Game+ comes out, and Nightmare difficulty is available, you’re probably going to want every advantage you can get. I feel like I always intend to want to go back to New Game+, but I hardly ever do. This time, though, I might actually do it.

After beating the game, I’ve already started to go back and collect some of the items I missed, mostly cause the upgrades might prove useful, but also because Alan Wake 2 is just so damn pretty and fun to play.

So Pretty It Burns the Eyes

It’s no far stretch to say that Alan Wake 2 is, at least technically speaking, one of if not the best-looking game out there—maybe one of the best-looking games ever. There was some prerelease hoopla that the game’s recommended specs were ridiculously high, which proved to be pretty unfounded. Make no mistake, though, you can’t run Alan Wake 2 on a toaster—but it’s a good thing it’s on consoles.

Despite being demanding and technically impressive, Alan Wake 2 runs pretty well on most “modern” systems. I say modern because some older GPUs don’t support mesh shaders—a more modern rendering method that this game uses. So, even on some top-of-the-line cards from 2017 run this game at really low framerates.

Those mesh shaders are actually low-key awesome. Typically, in games, if you take a look at an object, you can almost count the polygons, and games have started to use tricks (like tesselation) to help make things look more realistic. Mesh shaders allow for much more lifelike objects right out of the gate. Take a moment and just look at stuff in Alan Wake 2; everything just appears much more realistic.

Even on low, this game looks so good, and with every setting cranked to the max, it’ll bring most systems to their knees. That’s thanks to the game’s ray tracing/path tracing options, which are heavy as fuck, but so beautiful. Alan Wake 2 has some of the best lighting in a video game to date.

If you have a GPU that can handle it, it’s worth playing Alan Wake 2 with as much ray tracing as you can handle. It brings a lot of moodiness and atmosphere to the experience, enhancing the lighting to eye-bleeding levels. I look forward to the day I upgrade my 3080 to, perhaps, a 5000 series card in a year or two, and play through Alan Wake 2 again.

!¡! Spoiler Zone !¡!

If you’ve noticed, I’ve been avoiding talking too much about Alan Wake 2’s story, as experiencing it with as few spoilers as possible was such a great experience that I recommend everyone else interested in the game do it as well. Ironic, I know, since I streamed the game to people who definitely weren’t playing it. However, do as I say, not as I do.

“It’s not a loop—it’s a spiral.”

Those are the last words in the game, mirroring the last words of Alan Wake 1, which were, “It’s not a lake—it’s an ocean.”

As I interpret it, during the events of Alan Wake 2, Alan and Saga have not been “looping” through the Dark Place, or time. They’ve been spiraling deeper toward ascension, guided by Alice Wake. Surprise—she didn’t die; she faked her “suicide” and instead jumped into Cauldron Lake to enter the Dark Place to try to save Alan.

I was left satisfied by the game’s conclusion, but it also left me desperate to not only know what happens next, but to learn more about the events of Alan Wake 2. The game raised a lot of questions about what’s real and what’s fiction—it’s unclear at the end whether Alan Wake is even a real person, or someone created by Thomas Zane. And Saga’s backstory is also a huge open question, and we don’t know if Logan is alive or dead.

Technically, everyone is also still in the Dark Place, and as evidenced by the past thirteen years of Alan Wake’s life, it can be quite tricky to get out of here. This time, at least, Alan has help—in the form of Saga, Alex Casey, and Alice Wake.

With all that in mind, the wait for Alan Wake 3 will be a long one—hopefully not 10 years long, though. In the meantime, the game’s getting a big update in a month or so that will add New Game+ (called Final Draft here) as well as the hardest difficulty mode: Nightmare. It’s already been confirmed that Final Draft will have new narrative elements, so who knows what else that will reveal?

Control 2 is also confirmed, but that’s a ways off still. Nevertheless, Alan Wake 2 was an unforgettable experience, and I am, as they say, chompin’ at the bit for more story. Just remember, though …

It’s not a loop—it’s a spiral.