First Impressions: Alan Wake II
Originally posted on Wordpress on 30 October 2023
- Purchased Through: Epic Games Store
- Hours Played: 4.5 hours (first two Saga Anderson chapters completed)
Alan Wake II is a game I've been looking forward to ever since I finished playing Control and Alan Wake earlier this year. I preordered the game so I could play it on release because I did not want to run into any spoilers. I haven't even watched the latest promo videos and trailers that Remedy put out.
When the PC requirements were released, there was a bunch of discourse on the game being unoptimized and how it might not run well on non-current gen graphics cards. I wasn't too worried given that I'd upgraded my GPU earlier this year - and as it turns out, I had no reason to be worried at all.
For reference, my PC specs are RTX 3060 (12GB), i7-9700, and 16GB RAM. The game is installed on an SSD, and I'm running it at 1080p with medium settings and no ray tracing. I am averaging 55-60 FPS, with some areas in the 60s to low 70s. The lowest FPS I've seen is 47, and that didn't last very long.
The audio is quieter than other games I've played recently. Even with all volume sliders set to 90-100%, I still had to adjust the volume on my speakers. There's also an issue with the audio cutting in an out on driving cutscenes; I've seen many other people mention this. Audio in all of the other cutscenes is fine.
By the way, this game is gorgeous.
I've taken so many screenshots. There are times I'm stopping every couple of minutes to take a screenshot. Unfortunately, there is no photo mode, so I'm taking all these screenshots with the Print Screen button.
So far, this game has primarily taken place in the evening. It's pretty dark, which makes it a little difficult to play in the morning or middle of the afternoon. You'd definitely benefit from playing at night, or with all the lights off.
Manual saves happen in break rooms, which are located in certain areas. The game does autosave in certain areas, like before bossfights and at the end of chapters. I don't think I found a break room until chapter 2, so I did spend a few hours thinking the game was going to go off of autosaves alone.
You save with the Oh Deer Diner coffee mugs. The game gives you three save slots - which I suppose is better than one, so you can have backups in case one of your saves gets corrupted somehow.
Given that Control had more than a few references to Alan Wake (as both games take place in the same universe), I was wondering just when I would see the first Control references in Alan Wake II. I actually didn't have to wait very long. There's a mention of the Federal Bureau of Control in the first fifteen minutes, notices from the FBC, and an actual FBC agent who you can talk to briefly in chapter 2.
Like in the first Alan Wake, there are songs at the end of each chapter. There are also television shows (featuring the Koskela brothers, not Night Springs) and radio shows (featuring Pat Maine) that give you background information on what's going on in Bright Falls and the surrounding area.
Speaking of chapters, the next chapter doesn't start immediately upon the previous one being completed. You can walk around and explore as much as you want after the chapter ends and then chose to go to where the next chapter begins.
I had to tear myself away from playing yesterday. I'd reached what seemed like the end of the intro part of the game and had enough to write up this review. But I didn't want to stop playing! I wanted to learn more about what was going on. And I still do. Alan Wake II is definitely going to take up the night hours I don't spend on NaNoWriMo or sleep.
Some Thoughts On: Night Springs
Posted on 9 June 2024
Nights Springs is the first DLC for Alan Wake II. It has three episodes, which are flavored as episodes of the in-universe TV show Night Springs written by Alan Wake himself. Each episode is around 45 minutes-1 hour long, which feels pretty appropriate for an episode of television.
Each episode focuses on a different character. These characters resemble their in-game counterparts, but are not actually the same. They aren't even referred to by name, just by title: The Waitress (Rose Marigold), the Sibling (Jesse Faden), and the Actor (Tim Breaker). Datamining apparently revealed that there were supposed to be five episodes, with the additional two focusing on Alex Casey and Kiran Estevez. I imagine those were removed after James McCaffrey's death.
Episodes are available through the main menu screen, but I've seen posts on Reddit stating that they can also be accessed in the Dark Place while playing as Alan. I have not tried this myself.
Episode 1: Number One Fan is one is a Rose Marigold power fantasy. It's very pink. Everything has this pink tinge to it, including the sky and environment. It essentially has the same tone as Rose's fanfiction in the base game, which suggests that Alan was aware of Rose's fanfiction while in the Dark Place.
Episode 2: North Star is Jesse's episode. It starts off similarly to Control, except instead of the Federal Bureau of Control, Jesse arrives at…Coffee World. This version of Coffee World resembles the Dark Place, with similar lighting, enemies, and Tim Breaker. There are plenty of triangles here, including some that resemble the black inverted triangle from Control.
The first thing I actually noticed in this episode were some oddly low-resolution poster textures. That includes the poster in the image above. Despite fiddling with my graphics settings (which were set to high/ultra from the beginning), I could not get those textures to look better.
This episode felt like it needed a bit more work, like it was a surreal episode of TV that didn't quite hit the mark. Maybe that's the point? It's one of Alan's failed attempts at leaving the Dark Place. He tried to have Jesse rescue him outright and it didn't work, so he later “directed” her to the FBC so she could put things in motion to get him out of the Dark Place.
The third episode is Time Breaker, which is Tim's episode. Well, the character isn't actually Tim. It's an actor named Shawn (Ashmore), who's being directed by Sam (Lake), who is actually portrayed by Sam Lake, who is apparently very into acronyms.
Remedy Entertainment changed their name on social media to Poison Pill Entertainment before the DLC dropped. I assumed it had something to do with the DLC, but I didn't realize it would be the name of the in-game studio.
This one is the most creative episode out of all three of them. It starts off in the regular game engine, changes to a side-scrolling shoot 'em up, turns into a comic, and then ends as a choose-your-own text adventure with multiple paths. It has references to Control and Death Rally, as well as Quantum Break. I think most of the references, including the plot of the episode, are based on Quantum Break. As I haven't played the game yet, I can't say for sure.
I wish this episode had been longer. I would have been satisfied if an expanded version of it was the entire DLC.
Some Thoughts On: The Lake House
Posted on 30 December 2024
The Lake House is the second and final DLC for Alan Wake II. Kiran Estevez visits the Lake House, an FBC research facility run by Drs. Jules and Diana Marmont. Like with the previous DLC, this one is available through the menu screen. It's also available during a conversation Saga has with Estevez. This is the framing device for the DLC; Estevez provides narration throughout that makes it clear she's telling the story to Saga.
After Control revealed that Emil Hartman's Cauldron Lake Lodge had been seized by the FBC, I expected that this DLC would take place there. What would the Lodge look like 13 years later? What kind of research would the FBC have been doing? Unfortunately, Cauldron Lake Lodge isn't the Lake House. It's a separate place.
There are, however, plenty of similarities between the two places. Like how Hartman exploited artists in an attempt to control the Dark Presence, the Marmonts exploited artists in order to study it. They even mention Hartman, and how they'll do a better job. If you thought what Hartman was doing was bad, then you'll think the Marmonts are much, much worse.
The new enemy introduced is the Painted – spindly humanoid creatures that pop out of paint on the walls and are invulnerable to everything except a weapon you get late in the DLC. They were created by the Painting, which itself was created when Rudolf Lane (who you meet at Cauldron Lake Lodge in the first Alan Wake game) committed suicide by creating a painting using his own blood. It's very obvious that the suicide was a result of the Marmonts constantly pressuring him into creating art.
Diana Marmont's method of study is, essentially, "AI art" generation. She attempts to produce manuscript pages in Alan's writing style by feeding them into an algorithm which then spits out pages en masse. And I mean it – there is a giant room filled with typewriters creating manuscript pages.
Right when you enter the lobby of the Lake House, there is a video of the Marmonts, obviously emulating the style of Dr. Darling's videos in Control. They immediately fail to be as charismatic as Darling. In fact, there's quite a bit of resentment from Jules Marmont toward Darling, and both Marmonts toward each other. The manuscript pages written by Alan do describe the Marmonts' failing relationship – is this Alan's clairvoyance in action, or is it him influencing reality through his writing once again?
You learn some things about the FBC in this DLC. The Oldest House has been on lockdown since 2019. The FBC has been operating out of field offices – there's a mention of one in Boston. No one knows about Jesse or the Hiss, and everyone still thinks that Trench is the Director.
There is a completely optional visit to the Oceanview Motel where you travel to the Panopticon in the Oldest House. In the hallway leading to the Panopticon is a painting of the Director on the wall. The painting itself is halfway between Trench and Jesse – pretty odd, as all the paintings of the Director changed to Jesse immediately upon her gaining the Service Weapon. What's going on during the events of Control 2?
Inside the Panopticon itself is Dylan Faden, who gives a few cryptic comments that are definitely related to Control 2. There are some images (concept art, I imagine) of New York, seemingly confirming that we'll be going outside the Oldest House in Control 2. It's very similar to the conversation between Alan and Tom Zane in Control's AWE DLC, so I imagine we'll be able to see Dylan's perspective on this conversation with Estevez in a couple of years.
The final boss, a Taken version of Diana Marmont, was kind of disappointing. That's a bit of a recurring theme in Remedy's games – great atmosphere, great story, disappointing boss fights. I don't exactly play these games for the combat, so I have no issue with it. The room definitely could have benefited from better lighting; I had trouble telling where Taken Diana was because of how dark it was.
After the boss fight, Estevez sees a vision of Alan at his desk, giving her advice on how to find him – he's in the woods outside Bright Falls. That confirms that the events at the Lake House happened concurrently to Saga and Casey arriving at Bright Falls. I'd been under the impression that it happened earlier and that's why the FBC was already in the area to swoop in and take over Saga's investigation.
I'm now a little confused as to how long the events of Alan Wake II last. It can't be more than a few days, yet Ed Booker managed to get kidnapped by the Marmonts after meeting Saga in the Oh Deer Diner, the Marmonts got Taken, and the Lake House got wrecked beyond repair – and that's all before Estevez entered the Lake House.
I think I'll just have to assume that time works differently in FBC facilities, just like it (presumably) does in the Oldest House.