Alan Wake 2 is worth every minute of the 13-year wait
26.10.2023 - 14:49
/ polygon.com
/ Saga Anderson
/ Sam Lake
/ Alex Casey
I’m hard-pressed to remember a game with as shockingly effective an opening as Alan Wake 2. From the outset, Remedy Entertainment makes its intent explicitly clear: to amplify every facet of its 2010 action-horror cult classic, and in doing so, subvert interactive storytelling tropes at every turn. Astoundingly, the studio’s grasp meets its reach, delivering an experience far darker, deeper, and weirder than anything it has crafted before.
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“This is not the story I wanted it to be,” Wake gravely warns in an opening monologue. “This is not the ending that I wanted.” Indeed, this is not the original aborted sequel to Alan Wake that was conceived all the way back in 2010. Alan Wake 2 is something altogether different and, in a post-Controlworld, something with production values and scale that the studio never would have had all those years ago.
Picking up 13 in-game years after the events of the first game, Alan Wake 2 stars not only the eponymous writer turned interdimensional warrior, but also a new protagonist in the form of Saga Anderson: an FBI profiler who arrives in the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, Washington, to investigate the latest in a series of mysterious disappearances and murders supposedly linked to a deranged cult.
Upon arriving, Saga and her partner, Alex Casey — a jaded yet affirming mentor with an affinity for coffee, and the likeness of creative director Sam Lake — deduce that the murders may also be linked to Wake, who disappeared over a decade earlier. The pair quickly find themselves at the heart of a terrifying mystery, one that threatens to not only endanger their lives, but reshape the very fabric of reality as a whole.
The original Alan Wake was well known for drawing heavily from such works as the horror stories of Stephen King, the serialized drama of Lost, and the surrealist humor and aesthetic of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. The sequel is no different, though the game’s emphasis on survival horror systems pulls from a far stranger concoction of inspirations. To put it broadly, the game’s story and tone consist of a combination of the first season of True Detective, Twin Peaks: The Return, and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness: a slow-burn detective thriller that gradually escalates into a full-blown cosmic-horror nightmare.
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