Part of me was worried that Alan Wake 2 would be disappointing. The pessimistic side of my brain feared that it would be a situation where, sure, the sequel we've waited over a decade for was finally getting made – yay! – but what if it didn't live up to the cult-classic legend of the 2010 original? After all, anticipation – particularly so many years' worth of it – has a way of overpowering the reality of the thing you've been waiting for.
Though Alan Wake himself is rewriting reality as he seeks escape from the Dark Place in Alan Wake 2, the reality of the game in front of me needed no rewriting. I played a few hours of it across two different missions and what I’ve experienced is fantastic, simultaneously feeling almost nothing like the original from a gameplay perspective but also 100% Alan Wake.
We've written a lot about and shown plenty of Alan Wake 2 during this month's exclusive IGN First coverage, so I want to focus solely on my personal thoughts on Remedy's long-awaited sequel on both a macro and micro level after finally getting to play it. I've enjoyed almost everything Remedy's ever made, but Alan Wake 2 feels like I'm watching an already decorated developer level-up before my eyes.
Before I get into the specifics of the two missions I played, I want to talk about the visuals. To my eyes, Alan Wake 2 is one of the most next-gen-looking games I've seen yet. Remedy's in-house Northlight tech shines here, with lighting, texture detail, and especially character faces combining to craft a strikingly beautiful game.
But none of that would matter if Alan Wake 2 weren't fun to play. And thankfully, if the two missions I played are any indication, it's riveting. The story is clearly deep, layered, and engaging; that much was obvious even though my demo threw me right into the middle of the game.
Scared Saga
My first mission was FBI agent Saga Anderson's third (you'll be able to swap back and forth between Saga and Alan at will, so her third could be your, say, eighth, if you decide to play a bunch of Alan missions first). In it, she had to wander around a flooded town that, per the reality being rewritten by Wake but not the actual reality she knows, she resides in at a trailer park. From watching Ahti sing at the rec center (and if you've played Control, Atti may look familiar) to searching for clues to Wake's mystery at the abandoned Coffee World theme park, it's quickly obvious that Alan Wake 2 has nothing else if not atmosphere.
While I knew going in that this sequel was leaving action-adventure gameplay behind for pure survival horror, I didn't know quite how much Alan Wake 2 would lean into clever puzzle-solving. One at Coffee World tasked me with finding a safe code, which had to be deduced by using not-super-obvious context clues in the room the safe is located in. Another involved finding a particular item using a clue and then analyzing the environment to find the rest of the information I needed when I located it. I hope the rest of the game has as many fun puzzles as this mission does.
Combat, meanwhile, is given weight by being slow and deliberate, as you'd expect in a survival horror game. Just like in the first Alan Wake, you'll need to make the Taken vulnerable by burning them with your flashlight, and then finishing them off with your firearms. Getting outnumbered is a recipe for a quick death, and neither Saga nor Alan can absorb much damage. They're just normal people, after all. Getting comfortable with the dodge button is a must.
You'll pick up clues to the greater mystery at hand around the environment and from talking to townsfolk, and then you'll need to piece those clues together yourself on the Clue Board, accessible anytime inside Saga's mind. This was admittedly quite cumbersome to navigate at first, but once I got comfortable with it I really enjoyed mapping everything out on the wall and laying out what I'd learned.
A. Wake from the Dark Place
As Alan, I played a chunk of his fifth mission, titled "Room 665," and that's when things really started to get weird – because I was in the Dark Place! Graffiti everywhere warned Wake with "DON'T WRITE" messages while a ringing payphone begged our hero to answer, and then a neon sign beckoned the tortured writer to the Oceanview Hotel.
In this mission, Alan's got a lamp that can instantly switch reality – don't worry, it'll be explained when you play the game from the beginning – meaning that scenes in front of you can be instantly changed, opening new pathways before your eyes. And when he picks up clues, he can rewrite reality in his mind's version of the Case Board, called the Plot Board. You blink, and the scene in front of you will shift. As Remedy has done in the past, live-action scenes also work their way into the story in organic, unexpected ways (rather than the siloed game/live-action divide that Quantum Break had), though I’ve been asked not to show them here. These are a big plus in my brief experience thus far, as they add another layer of mystery and intrigue to a story that's not lacking in that valuable commodity as it is.
It's almost difficult to put my finger on exactly why I enjoyed what I played of Alan Wake 2 so much. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll say it this way: I suppose it starts with the story, as there's way more to get invested in here, narratively speaking, than most games in the survival horror genre. That the player is actively involved in shaping that story through connecting clues on the Case Board, and rewriting reality as Alan, only deepens my attachment to Wake's world and, indeed, his fate. The fantastic graphics certainly don't hurt, and the creepy mood and unusual tone that mixes horror, drama, and occasional absurd comedy all combine to make Alan Wake 2 feel wholly unique. I can't wait to experience the rest of Alan's new nightmare, and if we're really lucky, maybe this is only the beginning rather than the end.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
