Alan Wake II Review
Show me the Champion of Light!
Any narrative, whether a novel, television series, film, game, or any of the numerous vessels of storytelling all have one thing in common: the unique voice of its creator. The survival horror genre, for example, has had many stories told in this medium: the cosmic horror of Dead Space, the interconnected stories of Resident Evil, and so many more that have contributed to the tapestry of horror that has made the genre so captivating.
Remedy has also decided to contribute with their unique voice with the follow-up to the incredible psychological action adventure Alan Wake, a game about a writer whose machinations start to come to life through his writing. Alan Wake II, however, is a departure from the original formula, adapting elements from other survival horror games while also carving their unique take on the genre.
The original Alan Wake is a game that I fell in love with long before its release in 2010, and since then, the developer has created many incredible games like Quantum Break and Control, but nothing could have prepared me for the experience of Alan Wake II. It’s Remedy’s greatest story to date and one of the few games I feel comfortable describing as genre-defining.
It’s an Ocean
The original Alan Wake featured the title character escaping to the small town of Brightfalls after wrestling with a severe case of writer's block. Sweeping shots of the Pacific Northwest and a stirring soundtrack laid the foundation for an incredible psychological action adventure game where the player faced the forces of darkness armed with a flashlight, a revolver, and a light switch.
More than a decade later, we finally find out what happened to Alan Wake but in a far more menacing tone than the original. Remedy has taken the action-adventure roots of the series and has introduced its take on survival horror with glowing success. Gone are the fast-paced gunfights with the agents of darkness and replaced with terrifying enemies and a struggle for survival. But this story isn’t just Alan’s, it's also Saga’s.
Alan Wake II introduces a dual storyline starring the title character and introducing Saga Anderson, an FBI agent who comes to the town of Bright Falls to investigate the murder of a former FBI agent who will be recognizable by fans of the original. Saga is an incredible addition to the series and a character that Remedy went to painstaking lengths to ensure that she is just as important to the story as Alan is.
At first, I was a bit worried about an additional character fraying the story, but Remedy has expertly crafted a dual campaign that allows both characters to be stars of their own story, but also come together in satisfying ways. While it was thrilling to see Alan Wake back after so long, I’ve come to love Saga Anderson’s character and her incredible portrayal by Melanie Liburd.
Alan Wake II is also the continuation of the Remedy Connected Universe where players will find many connections to their previous game Control. These connections are interwoven into the story and world, never feeling out of place while simultaneously being compelling and important to this singular universe Remedy continues to craft. But even beyond the connections to Control, this game is a master class in multimedia storytelling.
Alan Wake II is a video game, it’s also a book, a film-noir, a television series, and a series of hilarious commercials, and they all connect seamlessly to build a story and world around the player. There is one particular chapter in Wake’s story that is an immediate standout, and people who have played the game or spent a whole 20 minutes on social media know exactly what I’m talking about.
“Show me the Champion of Light I'll show you the Herald of Darkness;” this chapter alone showcases the uncompromising vision that Remedy has, something that is increasingly rare in this or any medium of storytelling.
All of this is brought together with the incredible writing in the game, but also the standout performances by the main characters, supporting characters, and even just the average citizen of Bright Falls. The story, the characters, and the world-building are all destinations for players to experience, but the gameplay is the vessel of the journey and it is a thrilling one.
The Pen is Mightier (But a sword helps)
Alan Wake II is now a survival horror game: it is also one of the most terrifying games I’ve ever played. From the sleepy streets of Bright Falls and its surrounding areas to The Dark Place, Remedy has created a terrifying world for players to explore.
There are only a handful of video games that have scared me, and Alan Wake II joins the ranks of games that have completely ruined my sleep cycle due to how anxious I became at night.
Remedy has taken some inspiration from games like Resident Evil and Dead Space while putting their spin on gameplay. Alan Wake II plays like most survival horror games: a 3rd person shoulder perspective, a tile-based item management system that you can slowly upgrade, and a roster of tools and items to help you explore the world, and fight back. Alan and Saga may play essentially the same, but the attention to detail in their animations sets them apart. This emphasis on animation also adds to the terror: equipping weapons and applying healing items all have such weight and incredible physicality that add to the tension of slamming a shotgun shell into the chamber before an enemy attacks you.
Also for fans of the series, yes, the flashlight is still here and just as useful as ever: use the flashlight to burn away an enemy's “dark shields” to land more damage. But be careful, resources are limited so be mindful of which fights to engage, and which to run away from.
One of the few weak areas in its gameplay, however, is the enemy variety which had your standard shadow human, the quick-moving axe throwers, a heavy and neat/terrifying surprise for players.
While they may play the same, they both have a unique space for players to explore the psyche of the characters that also drive the story forward: the Mind Place and the Writers Room.
First, the Mind Place, Saga Anderson's space in her mind which is displayed to the player as a physical construct: the inside of a cabin. In this space players can interact with the environment in the form of a case board where players can put together clues, a table where players can profile characters, and more. The Mind Place is an excellent space for players to interact with the story from the lens of an FBI Agent and expert profiler by moving around evidence and pinning them to topics to make deductions or to trigger profiling. Profiling is a visual depiction of Saga reaching into the minds of her suspects understanding their thinking process and moving the story forward.
Second, we have the Writers Room, Alan Wake’s safe haven in The Dark Place, the shadow realm of sorts that Alan has been stuck in since the original game. While the Mind Place is in Saga’s mind, Wake uses the writer's room to project himself into a version of the dark place that he can recognize, in this case, a dark, twisted version of New York City. He uses this projection to explore this dark dimension in hopes of finding a way out. The Writers Room has a different mechanic where instead of putting together clues and profiling suspects, Alan can use story beats to manipulate and change parts of the environment that are associated with the same beats. Not only is it an interesting mechanic to explore the world with, but it’s also visually impressive as environments shift and change instantaneously. There are other similar “instant” changes that Alan can do which I’ll leave for players to experience.
Beauty in Darkness
Remedy has always made visually striking games, Control being an incredible example of one, but after seeing Alan Wake II in motion I can say with utmost confidence that it has set a benchmark in visual fidelity. Even on my PC which has an RTX3070 and with no ray tracing enabled, Alan Wake II is a stunning game that showcases the power of Remedy’s proprietary Northlight Engine.
I do wish I could show you how this game looks on a 4000 series PC with Path Tracing enabled (for that, you can check out this jaw-dropping demonstration), but even on my setup with none of the fancy bells and whistles, Alan Wake II is one of the most stunning games I’ve played. I did however have some slow-downs and stuttering especially in Saga’s campaign considering a lot of her environments involve an insane amount of foliage, but it was negligible and at no point hurt my experience.
Remedy has also created some incredible detail in characters, surprisingly enough, outside of cutscenes. Most games will showcase incredible detail of characters in cutscenes but outside of them, they’re fine, and worse for NPCs. Having a normal chat with someone in the diner with no change to the camera or triggering a cutscene, NPCs look amazing and rival most game “cutscenes” when it comes to player models: that detail blew my mind a little bit.
Besides the visuals, it is the art direction and attention to detail that Remedy has put into this world that has to be lauded. Remedy has plucked out the Pacific Northwest and placed it into this game with palpable success: forests feel alive and forbidding, the town of Bright Falls is alive and incredibly detailed and the otherworldliness of the Dark Place is faithfully twisted and veiled in mystery. Much like the original game, Alan Wake II features gorgeous lighting that fills the environment by bathing it in sunlight or shrouding it in darkness. The game also showcases Remedy’s love of colour-grading and bringing both their love for film and their unique vision to life.
These faithfully realized worlds are further developed through Remedy's attention to detail in sound design. Walking through a forest feels real, and rightfully terrifying, and Wake’s time in the Dark Place sounds as twisted as it looks. Remedy has also brought their A-game when it comes to the music: much like, well, every game they’ve made, Alan Wake II features a great collection of licensed music and original songs. There are even some songs by Poets of the Fall, who also play a critical role in the narrative.
Remedy strings together beautiful visuals and sound design to help create this terrifying, compelling space for players to get lost in this narrative.
This Game is a Monster (Conclusion)
Alan Wake II is Remedy at its absolute best, but it’s also a team continuing their tradition of being uncompromising in their vision. Since the original Max Payne, Remedy has pushed the envelope of not just improving on what they’ve built but continuously pushing their creativity. We’ve seen it in Quantum Break when they made an entire TV show to compliment the game or Control and mixing live-action with gameplay and now Alan Wake II, taking all of these elements and layering it on a dense yet accessible experience that has something for horror fans, fans of comedy, fans of Remedy and just those who are fans of a good story.
I really do try not to avoid superlatives when discussing games, but it’s hard not to consider Alan Wake II as a generational-defining experience. To be quite frank, all I’ve wanted for the past 13 years was a sequel to Alan Wake, I didn’t expect a masterpiece of such calibre, and that itself is worth the price of admission.
Alan Wake II is a 10/10.
