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Alan Wake 2 is a slow-burn thriller, but so far it’s sunk its hooks in deep and goodOur review is still cooking
Our review is still cooking
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
TheAlan Wake 2review embargo lifts today, but ours needs a bit more time in the oven. Review code only came in late Sunday night, and for a game so heavily reliant on the thrust and resolution of its story, it’s imperative I get to the end of it before I deliver my final verdict. Alas, the business of running a website does not play nicely with tight review deadlines like this, but what I can tell you after 15-odd hours of play is that it’s really sunk its claws into me good and proper.
Alan Wake 2 is a much creepier, more unnerving kind ofhorror gamethan its predecessor, doubling down on its fiction-meets-reality schtick while also piling on the scares and interlacing it with unsettling imagery of teeth-gnashing, inkblot-stained doppelgangers to ratchet up the tension. In many ways, this is a game that owes as much toResident Evil7 as it does its own lineage in the genre, and the dual narratives of its two protagonists, FBI agent Saga Anderson and Alan himself, arguably make this Remedy’s most sophisticated tale yet.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
It’s a real brute on performance, but it sure looks gorgeous if you’ve got the PC for it. I’ve been playing it with an Intel Core i9-11900K CPU, Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card and 16GB of RAM on an SSD, and even I’m only just about managing 60fps on 1920x1080 on High with no ray tracing. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
At the same time, though, the system is sadly quite prescribed and mechanical in how it all functions and fits together. Attempting to put a piece of evidence in the wrong place simply earns you a ‘Tsk’ or a ‘Nope’ or frustrated sigh, and it’s a real shame that it automates so much of Saga’s deduction process. It’s not like I was expecting the next Obra Dinn or anything, but it makes surprisingly few demands on the player when it comes to doing any of the figuring out. In some ways, this is to be expected when Remedy are telling a very set and particular story, but I had hoped they would be a touch more rigorous in how they asked us to piece everything together. This is particularly true when it comes to Saga’s Profiling ability, which helps her uncover some slightly more… creative solutions to the problems at hand. In practice, they’re little more than miniature cutscenes that spit out answers at the end of them, but some leaps of logic have verged on being so outlandish that even I was left wondering how she came to that conclusion. If I’d been involved in joining some of those dots myself, on the other hand, maybe they might not have seemed so implausible.
Subtlety has never been Alan Wake (the writer)’s strong suit, but I do love how patently on the nose his subconscious is in the Dark Place. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Epic Games Publishing
Crucially, though, its hard lean into psychological horror hasn’t yet tipped over into feeling overwhelming or like I just want it to hurry up and end already because it’s too stressful. I may have already played the equivalent of an entire Resident Evil campaign so far, but right now, Alan Wake 2 only just about feels like it’s getting going - and I’ve really been enjoying how deliberately slow-paced it is. Even now, it’s keeping its cards very close to its chest, and I still don’t feel like I know where the story’s going yet. But I’m excited to find out and keep playing, because if Remedy can stick the landing on this, then Alan Wake 2 could really be something special. So hang on for a few days more, and I’ll hopefully have my final review ready for you early next week.
