A game developer that has been around for so long, yet still manages to surprise me come few and far between. Fortunately, for Remedy Entertainment, they are still one of those developers. Being a fan since the original “Max Payne” game, to the present, they’ve always seemed to find ways to challenge themselves and push not just the medium of gaming, but how to tell a strong narrative in that medium. 2010’s “Alan Wake” was one of my favorite games of that era and it always felt underrated or under-appreciated as it got older. This was the title where you could really tell Remedy was honing in on their own unique style. Most notably known is their use of live action filmmaking being incorporated into segments of the game. They doubled down on this immensely with 2016’s Quantum Break where there was fully filmed live action episodes of story interwoven in. Story is going to come up a lot, and that is mostly thanks to creative director Sam Lake that clearly knows that story, character, and atmosphere are paramount for becoming fully engulfed into a world. The story of “Alan Wake II” is a long and grueling one, but 13 years after the release of the original this sequel has made its debut, and I will tell you right now, it delivers on everything you could want and then some.
To quickly bring you up to speed, Alan Wake is an author known for writing very popular crime novels. While on a retreat with his wife in Bright Falls, you quickly learn that Alan’s life isn’t the best, he’s a bit of a drinker, he can often be rude to his wife, he’s struggling with his writing. Things take an even worse turn when his wife goes missing and you learn she is trapped somewhere known as “The Dark Place.” Fast forward to the end, his wife is freed from this place, but unfortunately for our boy Alan, he is now stuck there. Describing the dark place is not very easy, but consider it as a limbo or nightmare you cannot wake from. But yeah, this is how the first game ended, and we never got much of a resolution since. Although we did get a cool crossover expansion in 2019’s “Control” (which is also a fantastic Remedy game that takes place in the same universe as “Alan Wake”) that informed us that Alan is still trapped where we last saw him and when “Alan Wake II” begins, this is where we still find him. Surprisingly, Alan isn’t the only character you play as in “Alan Wake II.” The game is divided up between two stories, the one of Alan trying to get out of the dark place, as well as FBI agent Saga Anderson, uncovering a bizarre mystery involving a cult and perhaps her destiny is linked with Alan’s.
A couple hours into the game, you will eventually gain the ability to switch between playing as Alan or Saga at a moment’s notice. Two characters, two dimensions, both at your fingertips and can be played in whatever order you like from then on. Where the original “Alan Wake” title was more of a third-person action horror game, Remedy deviates a bit and transforms this story into a fully blown survival horror game. Very much influenced by the “Resident Evil” series where its over the shoulder and supplies and ammo is more limited, this shake up not only adds to the horrific story that’s being told, but feels more like “Alan Wake” than ever before. Perhaps the original should have been more of a survival horror as well, but either way, as much as I loved the original, this change is very welcome and feels natural. An “Alan Wake” staple is using light to help destroy your enemies known as “the taken,” and it’s great to see it back in this sequel and used even more masterfully in a survival horror way.
Playing as Saga, you’re investigating the horrific murders going on done by a mysterious cult called the “cult of the tree” in a small town and this is where a lot of the “True Detective” influence lies. As you walk around and meet people of the town, things clearly feel off and creepy. The ways the game slowly builds up the tension and horror are amazingly written and crafted. As Saga, you also can go into “the mind place” which is exactly what it sounds like. You’re walking around inside her mind as you put together the clues you find on the wall and do your best to make it all make sense. The switch between the real world and traveling into your mind place is nearly instantaneous and pretty awesome to see technically. Back on the Alan side of things, being in this strange pocket dimension that is “the dark place” there is no sense of time or rules necessarily. Alan has the ability to rewrite the reality that he’s in. This can be very handy and convenient as you can create new paths ahead of you or open doors that were once locked, but are now suddenly unlocked. It’s also really cool to see the dark place transform into a dark and spooky version of New York City, where Alan is from.
I could go on and on about the layers of story. The immense layers of how complex everything truly is with all the references to previous games and how Remedy is building it’s Remedy Connected Universe (the RCU?), but if you didn’t know, for me, what really draws me in is the story and there is so much here that pays off. Not just the several different meta narratives, but even the multiple main stories and the resolutions to answers I’ve been waiting so long for are finally given to us in the most phenomenal ways I never even saw coming. “Alan Wake II” is the magnum opus of everything Remedy has created molded into one truly exceptional product, but is also the beacon of light of so much more amazing potential they still have to offer going forward. I review a lot of games for Gaming Cypher, and I don’t think I’ve ever given a game a ten out of ten score. This game continued to terrify me in the best ways and often had me picking my jaw off the ground in complete awe. With 2023 going down as probably the most incredible years of gaming releases, I can easily say that “Alan Wake II” is on the short list of the best of the best.
10/10
Check out the Alan Wake 2 Launch Trailer HERE
For more information, visit https://www.alanwake.com/
Related: Nick Navarro Reviews
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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