Alan Wake 2 preview: Remedy’s survival horror sequel takes hold
Mirror Gaming got to see 41 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay, with Alan being forced to confront his inner demons in a dark, dilapidated version of New York.
13 years after Alan Wake released as an Xbox 360 exclusive, the eponymous author is back in Alan Wake 2, once again caught in a mystery of his own making. This time it’s realised as a location called The Dark Place, where what’s real and what’s not has lost all meaning, resulting in warped, spooky take on the Big Apple. It’s the perfect backdrop for the sequel, as I found out in a hands-off Gamescom demo I got to see at a behind-closed-doors event this week.
It's certainly impressive just how much of a step up graphically Alan Wake 2 is compared to the first game – but that's to be expected over a decade and two console generations later. Remedy Entertainment’s in-house engine, Northlight, looks to be working overtime; so much so that there were even some instances where I couldn’t tell the filmed live-action sequences apart from gameplay. Once again, creative director Sam Lake and his team are utilising all kinds of filming techniques to set the off-kilter mood, switching between mediums during important moments to keep players just as on edge as its central character. Watching Alan seamlessly jump from backstage green room into the live-action talk show (headed up by Killzone: Shadow Fall's David Harewood) was a great example of this
Up until now Remedy has kept pretty quiet about what its titular character has been up to during the promotion of Alan Wake 2. FBI Agent, Saga Anderson, appears to be the source for any and all folk-based scares, being based up in the north pacific. By comparison, Alan finds himself in a much more psychedelic and unpredictable location: the mind. The two’s paths are set to cross eventually, and there’s a small hint of that towards the end of the demo I got to see.
Ghost town
The demo focused on an early chapter called Casey, named after the character Alan himself has made the protagonist of his own crime novel series. Only now he comes face to face with Alex Casey – played by Remedy's Sam Lake – up close, all but confirming that Alan is yet again the most unreliable of narrators, alongside some very meta self-awareness. Picking himself up out of that green room from a talk show he can’t remember attending, the demo follows Alan as he trawls the dark, empty streets of NYC searching for answers. Casey, predictably, doesn’t look to provide any, but he does provide Alan a handgun useful for keeping the shadow-like creatures at bay (though I won't say under what circumstances).
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In addition to the familiar cycle of shining your torch to bring foes into reality long enough to shoot them, light plays a more important role than ever in Alan Wake 2. Not only is it a tool to be weaponised, but it can now also be shaped and changed to influence the places you’re able to explore. An early example of this in the demo came when Alan made his way to a derailed subway train underground. What was once a blocked off path can be opened up, thanks to something called the Angel Lamp, which enables you to shift light from one area to another under certain circumstances.
A more expanded version of doing this relates to Alan’s editorial sensibilities more directly. His version of Saga Anderson’s mind palace (a base of operations) is called the writer’s room, which can be accessed at certain points in a level to let Alan retreat and gather his thoughts. Once here you can engage with the plot board, which allows you to link key bits of info you’ve gathered to specific scenes, ultimately revealing a new route that contributes to Alan’s goal of escaping The Dark Place. Remedy has made clear that there is only ever one correct pairing for each, though linking up the wrong clue and scene offers up more narrative titbits you otherwise wouldn’t hear.
Expansion really is the key takeaway from this 41-minute gameplay slice of Alan Wake 2. Whether it’s be the world, the ambition of the story, or the number of unique opportunities available to you purely by nature of Alan being a writer, Remedy seems to have poured an endless amount of creativity into this side of the scenario as much as Saga’s.
The swerve from psychological thriller to survival horror is working wonders, and I can’t wait to dive in when we turn the page on the next chapter of Alan Wake’s potential descent into madness.
Alan Wake 2 is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on October 27, 2023.
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