Alan Wake II review | Don’t be the story. Make the story 

After thirteen long years Alan Wake has a sequel, and I implore you to try this game.

This review has taken me a little time to get started, as I’ve been unsure how to take on a review of something I’ve found so incredibly unique and different from most other games I’ve played in 2023 – or maybe even ever. If you never got around to the first game, you could jump into Alan Wake 2 and still enjoy it. Still, with the developer Remedy pushing ahead with their connected universe for games (more on this later), I’d recommend getting up to speed on what happened before, as the story will only become even more twisted and confusing than it already can be.

I’ll keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but the game is heavily tied to its story beats, so for anyone unable to play so far, I’ll leave some tags for any story I feel the need to mention.

It’s wild to think that Alan Wake was originally an Xbox exclusive title, with it only coming to other platforms in 2021 when the game was remastered. The game was always popular and reviewed well, but it took some time to sell. Looking over posts online, it ended up selling somewhere between four and five million copies (before the remaster). It’s easy to understand why it was so well thought of, with great characters and profound lore; the game even starts with a quote from famed writer Stephen King. As time passed from its 2010 release, it became a cult classic among gamers and fans of the franchise. Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a stand-alone spin-off, was released in February 2012 on the Xbox Live Arcade service. This was more of a budget release rather than a full-blown sequel, even though it has plot points that may help you understand the full 2023 sequel.

Fans really wanted a sequel to Alan Wake, but Remedy would first make another Xbox exclusive in Quantum Break. This was actually born from the first ideas for Alan Wake 2 with Sam Lake, creative director and head of the Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment, commenting that although Microsoft liked the idea of mixing TV episodes with games, they were looking for a franchise that they would be in control of (pardon that pun….). Their next game, Control, also appears to have started as a concept of what Alan Wake 2 could be. This seems to be where the idea of a connected universe came from, with later DLC AWE (Altered World Even) for Control relating directly to Alan Wake.

I love the idea behind this, and the already strong cast of characters involved left me frothing at the mouth for what would come next: Alan Wake 2.

Releasing (digitally only) for PlayStation 5, Windows as an EPIC Store exclusive, and Xbox Series X/S on 27 October 2023, Alan Wake 2 sees us step back into the footsteps of Alan Wake; not only this, but we also have a new playable character in FBI Agent Saga Anderson.

***Slight spoilers ahead, so beware.

For anyone who hasn’t played the original Alan Wake, stop right here and play the remaster.

If you don’t want to, I still don’t want to ruin too much, but at the end of the game, Alan Wake meets a somewhat uncertain fate and is left stuck in the Dark Place (a world beyond ours full of shadows and monsters). This game picks up thirteen years later and sees him try to escape and return to the real world.

After an excellent introduction section that sets up the tone and feeling of the game, we meet Saga Anderson and her partner, Alex Casey. They are summoned to the mysterious town of Bright Falls to investigate a series of gruesome murders. These ritualistic killings have left the community in a state of fear and panic. As they delve deeper into the case, they discover that the fourth and latest victim is none other than former FBI agent Robert Nightingale, who vanished 13 years ago. It becomes clear that a group known as “The Cult of the Tree” is behind the murders, and they have a connection to the goings-on in Bright Falls. While examining the crime scene Saga uncovers a manuscript page from a book that seems to predict the future.

After your first actual boss fight, you’ll meet Alan Wake, who has managed to escape somehow from “The Dark Place” where he was left at the end of the first game 13 years earlier. You can then control either Alan or Saga (you can jump between the characters or choose to play each of their stories individually) for most of the game. This focuses on Saga trying to unfold the real story behind the cultists and the issues that seem to be affecting the people of Bright Falls and delve deeper into what’s going on with Alan and how he has returned.

Spoilers end.***

The sequel heads far deeper into survival horror than the original game’s more action-adventure roots. The slower pace is well-suited to a game that oozes atmosphere and begs to be explored in its semi-open world levels. Moving from objective to objective will see you miss out on much of what the game offers, with lots of collectables and puzzles to be found off the beaten path. You’ll find the following: cult stashes, lunch boxes, nursery rhyme dolls, nursery rhyme puzzles, charms, Koskela brother commercials, writer’s journey videos and, last but not least, weapons for each character. I still have some mopping up to do for 100% but it never feels overwhelming, even with all these different items.

You’ll also come across news items or written notes that add to the game world’s overall lore. These don’t count towards your progress, but they are interesting and, in my opinion, done much better than in Control, with less overall and they aren’t found as often. As much as I love Control, it gave you so much information at times, it was hard to keep track.

While you play as both characters and explore the multiple locations in the game, you must use Saga’s “Mind Place” and Alan’s “Writer’s Room” to help progress the story. Both have a similar idea: a separate location inside the character’s mind where they can focus on any story beats they have found so far. For Saga this is a police information board where she needs to match any clues she has found to points of interest. This will then give new objectives to investigate and move the story along. It works well but slows the game down, so it might not be for everyone. The change between the game world and mind place is completed incredibly quickly, fully utilising the storage options on all modern platforms. You’ll spend a fair bit of the game here hoping to work out what to do next to further your investigation.

Alan Wake’s “Writer’s Room” works slightly differently, although in the same vein. Here, you’ll find scenes and story ideas for each scene. Once again, the impressive quick changes in game worlds come into action, as each story idea will change what Alan can see in front of him. You’ll need to find the correct option to unlock information or paths into the next section of the game. You could miss a lot of additional lore here, as each idea typically comes with more information about what is happening. I suggest checking all the story beats and soaking up everything you can, no matter how grim the imagery is.

As I mentioned, the game focuses on a more survival horror feeling rather than action and is slow-paced and weighty. Your combat options include weapons and other items like flares and grenades, with them all providing great feedback. I’ve played the game with an Xbox Controller and a DualSense controller, with the added haptics and triggers of the DualSense adding some nice effects to the gameplay and is the way to play if you can. Unfortunately, outside weapons, I was disappointed with other effects on offer here, with them feeling like they need to be turned up just ever so slightly to take a greater effect. You also have a dodge and melee attack to use. Unfortunately, the dodge move has been downgraded somewhat from the first game, being more challenging to time and use effectively, but this also increases the suspense as you feel more likely to face a game over.

Also, the combat is meaty, and weapons pack a punch. Be prepared for lots of blood and bodies dying from impact. The environment also gets affected, not quite to the same level of particles and objects flying everywhere as in Control, but you can still see elements of this on show.

Alongside the weapons, both players use their flashlights to bring enemies out of the shadows and allow them to be damaged. You do this using a focused flashlight beam, which also uses up batteries that need to be found around the environment. This can be tense, but I never had to look too far to replenish my supply. While in Alan’s world, which is heavily populated with shadows, not every one needs to be taken down and true enemies only reveal themself as you get closer. This keeps you on edge and unsure about where the next attack will occur.

This game comes from developers who are currently at their peak. Their use of story and characterisation is masterful here. I loved every character in the game, from the main two to all the side cast. The actors involved bring their characters to life, and everything is on point: from voices to motion capture. The game also makes incredible use of live-action cutscenes alongside gameplay. If they were to repackage the game as a TV show, I’d drop everything to sit down and watch it from start to finish right away.

As much as I love the story of the game, the audio and music might be even better. It’s masterful; the in-game audio will have you checking over your shoulder for something creeping behind you and making sharp head turns, the noises of branches snapping, or birds making noises in the distance. The character voice acting is magnificent, with amazing performances from everyone involved. Where the game takes things to the next level is the soundtrack, and the music is beautiful. The end of each chapter features songs that fit perfectly with the story that is being told. I’ve now got the playlist on at least a few times a day. Massive shout out to Old Gods of Asgard (or, in real life, Poets of the Fall), who feature heavily in the game and are integral to parts of the storyline.

While still hoping to avoid spoilers, there is a certain section of the game which caught me off guard; you’ll know what I mean when you reach it. I played the entire section with the biggest smile ever on my face. Remedy has shown before they are able to create incredible sections of games that will be remembered as standouts; this is yet another showing of this skill. It’s mental and seriously well done, and I hope it’s rewarded in some of the upcoming award ceremonies for games in 2023.

The game is also among the best-looking games I’ve ever played and sees Remedy’s Northlight engine shine again. It’s been in use for a while and already stretched its legs in games like Quantum Break and Control, but now, with the power of the PS5, Xbox Series consoles and modern graphics cards, it really gets a chance to fully shine. Environments are full of details, faces look awesome and even hair, which can often be the downfall of a lot of games, looks wonderful. The game is so detailed and has unbelievable amounts of eye candy on show for you to take in.

On that note, PC players, beware: if you have a GTX 10 series Nvidia or AMD RX 5000 series card, you’ll need mod support to get the game to run; this is due to the use of Mesh Shaders, which are only supported in newer GPUs.

There was a bit of outrage about this and the game’s PC requirements overall before launch, which was blown out of proportion in my opinion. This game is looking to push current hardware limits, even going as far as to feature path raytracing if you have some of the higher-tier RTX graphics cards currently available. The game looks great even without this but features such as path tracing push it to the next level in terms of graphics; it’s no wonder that not everyone will be able to play it this way.

I’m lucky to have the hardware to run the game well, but not without the use of a little support from an upscaler or frame generation (using the driver preview for AMD fluid motion frames). Overall, I had very few issues with the game outside of one mission bug, which caused an environment structure to block my progress, and slight pop-in with textures in the first forest scene. The first was a case of reloading a save from a few minutes earlier, and the second was patched in an early update. The game has received great support so far, with patches coming out regularly; it looks like this will continue as there have been a few reports online of people still facing small and bigger issues.

Console performance also seems to be great, with Xbox Series consoles having a slightly more stable framerate than PS5. Both have 60fps performance modes as well as 30fps quality modes; the Series S also gets a good showing here but with a reduced resolution and no option of 60fps.

The last few chapters of the game pull everything together for the story, however a few side characters remain shrouded in mystery or with unsure futures. It’s been noted that the game is already set to get some DLC in the future, which I cannot wait for. There are a few ways this could go, depending on where they decide to focus, but I would love it if this game could lead directly into the upcoming Control 2.

Alan Wake 2 had me gripped from start to finish; the level of detail and quality of animation is remarkable and paired with an epic level of storytelling and audio, it amounts to an experience unlike any game I’ve played recently. The gameplay is solid and enjoyable throughout and when everything is put together it is a tremendous upgrade on the original game. Remedy has crafted their best game yet, and Sam Lake should be funded to make anything that he wants to, either for the Remedy connected universe or anything else that might take his fancy.

-Couchy