Initiation

  How to make a good story inside another story? That’s the challenge that Alan Wake 2 represents to Remedy Entertainment. The original game had so much content that no one would blame you for not understanding the plot entirely. I figured that building on top of the happenings of Alan Wake must have been quite an order. Thankfully, Remedy writers were up to the task, delivering one of the best video game tales I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience.

  Let’s start with a warning, if you’ve never played the original, then don’t even bother going for the sequel, there is a lot going on here. The game does hint at some flashbacks here and there with some documents scattered around Bright Falls, but it’s not nearly enough to cover all of the key plot points. I’d highly recommend you to play the 2010 release before diving deep into the sequel.

Return

  The game starts 13 years after the Cauldron Lake events. You play as Saga Anderson, a FBI agent that was recently tasked to solve a murder case in Bright Falls forest. Overall, she seems like a normal person with not much to add to the plot initially. Especially, considering that Saga is not present in the original game, so, as a new protagonist, she really needed to be on par with Alan Wake. I’ve had my doubts watching the trailers, but within my 21 hours playthrough, I am glad to state that she is just as interesting to play as the main character.

  The story revolves around Alan Wake's disappearance and his unknown connection to Bright Fall’s recent murder. It’s up to you to uncover the mysteries and loose ends that are still persistent in the story. For that purpose, a “Mind Place” was introduced to guide you through this journey. This feature is really interesting and helps the player keep up with the ongoing events, there are a lot of plot points and explanations to be found while you stick clues and proofs in the Case Board.

  The game is a third person horror game heavily focused on its story. The overall gameplay resembles Resident Evil 2 Remake. The combat, unfortunately, is one of the few pain points in the title. Its simplicity really stands out after a few hours and there ain’t much leverage for combat experimentation. There was so much potential to evolve the original Alan Wake combat framework to something unique and special, but Remedy decided to play safe in this topic.

Departure

  Before release, Remedy released the system requirements and players immediately questioned why a RTX 3070 could only reach a 1080p Medium setting. Having played through the entire game, I am confident that Remedy was telling the truth when they stated that “We played real safe on those PC settings”. The title played smoothly on my RTX 3070 using high settings, DLSS set to quality mode. Overall I got an average of 55+ FPS and my experience was great.

  The title is not bug free though, I’ve encountered a few of them, but none represented a blocker to my experience. Most of them involved: objects floating when they should be static, sometimes the audio volume was set too low, the lantern would not remove the taken shadow. Gladly, there were no crashes during my 1.0 playthrough and I consider the PC port a huge achievement for Remedy Entertainment.

Verdict

  Alan Wake 2 offers a compelling story and great graphics to follow. Its mysteries will keep you awake even after the credits finish rolling. Let’s hope the sequel doesn't take another 13 years to be released.

Highly Recommended

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