Alan Wake 2 Review (PC) | A Brilliant Nightmare Unlike Anything Else

Note: This review doesn’t discuss the story of Alan Wake 2 beyond some details about the initial setup. I tried my best to keep it spoiler free and only discuss light, gameplay-related spoilers. The ending of Alan Wake 1 is discussed.

That Alan Wake 2 even exists is nothing short of a miracle. When the first game was released in 2010, Remedy was fresh of the heels of the iconic Max Payne series and there was general excitement about what they’d do next. But Alan Wake had a very troubled development history, it was a weird product that was hard to market, and it came out around the same time as Red Dead Redemption. So, understandably, it was not a success, and Remedy had to move on to other projects.

Over the years, however, it became a cult classic. Those who played couldn’t shut up about it, and rightfully so. But it took a long time and an excruciating amount of teasing, before fans and Remedy themselves would finally get the sequel they all desired.

Now, it’s finally here, a mere 13 years later. Was Alan Wake 2 worth the wait? Can it fulfil the impossible expectations of fans? Is it as strange, innovative and unique as the first game?

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Alan Wake 2 Review | The Bottom Line

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes. Alan Wake 2 is a tremendous game. Everything is dialed up to 11 compared to the first game: it’s stranger, darker, more mysterious and more exciting. It’s also one of the most gripping stories I’ve ever experienced in this medium, and one of the most terrifying horror games I’ve played in a long time.

It’s also simply a lot better to play than the first game, offering a very engaging and entertaining mix between survival horror gameplay reminiscent of Resident Evil, and adventure game elements with a nice dash of detective work.

Not every element jells together perfectly though. The pacing of the game is very slow, due in part to the strong focus on exploration, and this will throw some players off. Because the levels are so big and complex, I constantly got lost and sometimes didn’t really know what I was supposed to do next. The survival horror aspects are also not quite as perfectly fine-tuned as in recent Resident Evil games, but are still very fun.

You Are The Detective In This Story

David Lynch once said, that “life makes detectives of each of us. There's something at the end of the trail that we're all looking for.” If I was given a year to come up with a quote that better encompasses not just his work, but Alan Wake 2 specifically, I probably couldn’t. The game starts out by introducing a new character: Saga Anderson. She is an FBI agent who is sent to Bright Falls, the setting of the first game, to investigate a series of ritual murders. And yes, this part of the game will definitely remind you of True Detective.

Of course, things are somehow connected to what happened in the first game and what Alan is doing. But having Saga in the mix offers so much when the supernatural horror in Alan Wake 2 slowly, dreadfully unfolds in front of the player.

You as the player, together with Saga, are hunting for clues, trying to make sense of the unbelievable, slowly puzzling together as many of the mysterious elements as possible. This happens through the Mind Place, an actually traversable space with a Case Board and other areas which help Saga investigate the strange events surrounding Bright Falls and Alan Wake .

The Case Board needs some getting used to, but once the controls and its logic click for you, it’s really fun to use. While exploring the world, Saga constantly finds clues about different cases and stories. You as the player need to connect these clues to the right part of the case board to progress the detective’s investigation, unlocking new information & mission objectives, progressing the story. This not only helps with making sense of what the hell is going on in this game, it can also feel cool as hell.

Saga is a fantastic addition to the universe and one of my favorite video game characters of 2023. She not only fulfils various narrative functions - being a focal point for newer players, a detective trying to make sense of the mystery, and a sympathetic figure to become emotionally attached to - she is also just really cool and well-layered.

Once she gets more personally interwoven with Alan’s story, things really become, to phrase it diplomatically, bat-shit crazy and intense. Big shout out to Melanie Liburd for her fantastic performance and her close collaboration with Remedy, I really loved the end result in the game.

You Are The Writer Of This Story

Of course, you’re not only controlling Saga in this game. The titular hero, Alan Wake, is also playable. Duh. Both characters basically experience their own stories. Think of Alan Wake 2 as having two campaigns which constantly cross paths and are generally intertwined. After having played through a certain number of chapters with each character, you can even switch between the two characters and play their respective stories at your own pace.

After the events of the first game, Alan has been trapped in the dark place for 13 years. Now, he senses a way out of it. However, escaping a nightmare dimension is obviously no easy feat. To do so, Alan has two incredibly cool tricks up his sleeve. He has an equivalent to Saga’s Mind Place, here called the Writer’s Room.

In certain places, if “inspiration” has hit Alan, you can rewrite the story to change the level in front of you. This also happens on a smaller scale with Alan’s Angel Lamp. Thanks to this magical thingamajig, you can capture light from one source and transfer it to another. In both instances, small parts of the level change in an instant.

These are not just insanely cool ideas that are visual knock-outs every time they happen, this element of changing the levels in an instant also leads to some cool and tricky puzzles. This is especially the case with the Writer’s Room, as Alan often has multiple options to choose from for how the story could change in this moment. Yes, that means that certain sections in Alan’s levels have five or so different variants, all of which you can change around quickly and at your own whim.

For Alan, the Dark Place manifests as a dark, menacing version of New York City, reminiscent of Max Payne or Taxi Driver. And this place is phenomenally beautiful. While Saga’s missions on the luscious greens of Washington State are drop-dead gorgeous, it’s in New York where this game flexes it’s technical prowess the hardest.

Neon lights cutting through walls of rain, streets littered with objects, walls covered in signs and graffiti: It’s impossible to experience this game's New York and not come away impressed. The attention of detail this game has is most present here and it’s frankly stunning.

Quick Tip: While playing Alan’s sections, make sure to read the small signs you find everywhere, like in the subway station during his first chapters. If you skip past them, you’ll miss out on some cool lore.

You Are The Victim In This Story

Alan Wake 1 clearly took strong inspiriation from horror stories, and had a tense, dark atmosphere, but it wasn’t a horror game. It was an action game. The Taken were quite scary, but you were mowing them down like it was nobody’s business.

When Alan Wake 2 was announced, Sam Lake clearly said it’s “Remedy’s first survival-horror game”. And he wasn’t lying! For one, Alan Wake 2 is clearly inspired by the most recent Resident Evil remakes. It plays quite similarly to Resident Evil 2 Remake, with resource scarcity, snappy third-person shooting and fewer, but more intense encounters being the name of the game here.

And it’s a really good version of that. The mix of exploration, puzzle solving and combat works really well. However, it doesn’t feel quite as perfected as in Resi. The shooting feels great, enemy behavior is kind of strange and sometimes irritating though. The inventory is unfortunately really clunky and resource management is not as fine-tuned as in Capcom’s survival horror series. Still, the gameplay here is satisfying and a big step up from the one-dimensional combat in Alan Wake 1.

Also unlike the first game, Alan Wake 2 is definitely a horror game, and a pretty terrifying one at that. In one of the developer diaries Remedy released ahead of the game’s launch, Principal Level Designer Teemu Huhtiniemi said that they wanted “to make the player feel uneasy at all times”. And he wasn’t lying! Alan Wake 2 is terrifying and consistently intense. There is a constant feeling of dread and anticipation, and I found myself clutching the controller through most of the game. I struggle to think of games that have an atmosphere this dense, enrapturing and exciting.

This sense of dread is masterfully elevated by the game’s pacing. Alan Wake 2 is absolutely a slow burn. It takes its time to establish its story, world and atmosphere. And this won't work for some, but it absolutely serves a purpose.

It forces you to really spend time in these terrifying places and to soak in the strange, intense sounds and visuals. The kind of horror in this game is more subconscious and atmospheric, but Alan Wake 2 also doesn’t shy away from using (really clever) jump scares. And wow is that mixture impressive and scary.

Verdict

Alan Wake 2 is one of the most stunning games I have ever experienced. And even though my hopes were high, It was able to surpass them with its art design, its sheer graphical quality, its audio-visual creativity, and the boldness of its storytelling. It’s frankly incredible how many ideas are crammed into this game and how amazingly (almost) all of them are realised.

This is also one of the most terrifying games I have played in a long while, with unease, tension and dread being your constant companions on this wild ride. As expected, the writing is absolutely excellent and Saga Anderson is one of the best video game characters in 2023.

So, yes: As a huge fan of the first game, I am ecstatic about how Alan Wake 2 turned out. This is a sequel that far exceeds expectations; its so much bolder and more expressive, and somehow even stranger than its predecessor.

Rating: 92/100