Alan Wake 2 Review

 When Balance Slays the Demon you'll find peace

Alan Wake 2 is a surrealist survival horror brought to us by the ever eccentric Remedy Entertainment. Continuing both from the original game, it's DLC followup, and the similarly obfuscated and bizarre Control. It's a little hard to give a standard review of a game like this, for one thing the combat and gameplay, while solid survival horror, is pretty standard for the industry nowadays. Resembling a more horror focused Control and reminding me of things like the Tomb Raider reboots or The Last of Us. It has weight to it's hits, fun exploration and puzzles alongside good gameplay story synchronicity. But the simple face is you're not playing Remedy Games for the gameplay anyway, unless it's Max Payne.

No the real home runner from Alan Wake 2 is the continuation of Remedy's trademark mixture of Stephen King, Twin Peaks, and other western inspired horror style with a genuine sense of fun and passion for what they're creating. From the FMVs that people clearly had way too much fun putting together, to the musical sequences that they know they don't need to subvert or otherwise tinker with, to Poets of the Fall and the chapter songs from various artists creating an amazing musical accompaniment to your playthrough, to Sam Lake doing a silly dance at the game awards. Alan Wake 2 feels like a game that people wanted to make, and as I've said before. That does a lot to carry an experience.

I will say that in particular, I think the game executes on it's themes of mystery and meta-narrative particularly well. offering bountiful rewards for players willing to go the extra mile in spotting detail or foreshadowing to either guess upcoming twists or plot beats, or just to get answers to questions one might have playing through. This is not a game that makes the lore a chore you have to watch a video essay to understand. Rather it's using the mystery to pace itself and create an engaging and thought provoking story mixed with the wilder aspects of elder gods and monsters.

It is a little up it's own ass on the meta-narrative side. I'm still not entirely sure why Sam Lake casts himself as himself playing Max Payne who is an aspect of himself? But that's to be expecting when this is very delibrately a story about stories. Plus, you do need to have played Alan Wake 1, American Nightmare, and Control to properly appreciate what is going on. Plus at least be aware of several parts of Max Payne and Quantum Break to more appreciate the meta nods to those series. Generally it's not an easy game to recommend, but at the same time Remedy games almost never are. But they are at least consistent, so at the very least. I can say that if you enjoyed previous Remedy games, you owe it to yourself to play this one.

You see I had to end that review with those criticisms and a summary, it's standard in review writing to try to cover as many parts of the game as possible in order to best convey to the reader if it's worth their purchase. However that sort of logic doesn't work as well when a reviewer is writing about something more niche or out-there in style. It's a shame, games like that, if anything, are only more worth celebrating and talking about. But to give it all away in the review would be to potentially ruin the experience for others. There's a balance you need to reach, it's not like writing. You're not trying to get across an entire universe to another person. You're trying to help them decide the worth of a piece of media they're on the fence about. But it's not just that, if someone's played the game already you want to offer an interesting take, something to further their own media literacy and hopefully improve the day of anyone reading the review. Not just those purchasing. It's a near impossible balance, not helped by a saturated market for reviewers and review websites. I had to try, or all this time spent writing would be for nothing.