Alan Wake 2: This cult horror game is back, its first installment made an impact on the industry!

game news Alan Wake 2: This cult horror game is back, its first installment made an impact on the industry!

In December 2021, Alan Wake II will finally be officially announced at the Game Awards! A highly anticipated sequel coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series on October 17th, 2023. It is therefore the continuation of the first part with the sober title Alan Wake. It was developed by Remedy, a Finnish studio behind the first two Max Paynes. Basically, the team’s ambition was to turn it into a scripted open world – a goal that was a bit too big for a small team with limited resources. Microsoft will be interested in the project and will decide to release it on Xbox and PC, which, by the way, will increase the budget. It was only in 2009 that Sam Lake, screenwriter and main “face” of the team, announced the new direction: more open world, but emphasis on the scenario, the narrative and a concrete atmosphere. The game will eventually be released on May 14, 2010 for Xbox 360 and March 2, 2012 for PC.

The game is therefore an action-adventure game with a touch of “survival horror” in which you play Alan Wake, a New York writer who has been suffering from blank page syndrome for the past two years. His wife Alice then decides to offer him a vacation in a small port town in the United States: Bright Falls. But among the mountains, the forests and the lakes lie ancient Native American legends, abandoned mines and repeated disappearances.. On the couple’s first night, Alice mysteriously disappears at the bottom of a lake. Alan, trying to save her, will wake up in a car accident a week later. This is how the adventure begins.

Frightened by disclosure

Alan Wake gives a very special place to the narrative, which is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. During the course of the adventure, the player stumbles across pages from a book written by Alan Wake himself (but which he has no memory of) called “Departure”.. Each of them tells about events that have just happened or are about to happen, which adds to the atmosphere. One of the first excerpts of the manuscript tells us that we are currently being pursued by a man armed with a chainsaw, while no one will be around for the foreseeable future. The following minutes are particularly depressing. The voluntary disclosure of future passages is somewhat original to the genre, giving Alan Wake a rather unique entity. We are no longer afraid of the unknown, but in the fear that disaster will threaten us at any moment.

Another originality of the soft: to survive it is necessary to use all kinds of light sources – very often those of the flashlight – to make the “black fog” of the enemies disappear and make them vulnerable to firearms. Survival horror inspiration obliges, the lamp’s ammo and batteries are in limited supply. However, combat is not always the best option. Often it will be necessary to flee to the nearest lamppost to become a real sanctuary where life returns and progress is saved. Because of this mechanic, the game isn’t really scary and rarely uses jump scare. It would be more appropriate to describe the game as depressing, which is a bit reminiscent of the formula of the Silent Hill series.

A game with strong inspirations

Also depressing because Alan Wake is openly inspired by Stephen King short stories. The game also begins with a quote from the author: “Nightmares are not logical and it would be pointless to explain them; it would contradict the poetry of fear.” In particular, there are references to sink or swimwith the strange black fog that surrounds the enemies, but especially at bag with bones etc misery : The hero is a writer, there is a strange atmosphere in a house by a lake and the hero does not know if he is dreaming or not. To complete this dark canvas, there are big nods to it glowing Stanley Kubrick, with enemies often attacking armed with an axe, like Jack Nicholson in the feature film (who Alan Wake will remember without hesitation); to the series twin peaks David Lynch, for all visuals, sets and dialogue staging; at the TV show The Twilight Zone (The Twilight Zone), whose credits and audio are used for the fictional show “Night Springs”. And above all, a writing that is very similar shutter Island by author Dennis Lehane, in the symbols used.

Welcome to Bright Falls

But a story would be nothing without its characters. Next to Alan we find Barry Wheeler, a childhood friend and agent of the author, who plays the role of “funny pal” and relaxes the atmosphere a bit (he is also doubled in VF by Christophe Lemoine, Eric’s French voice). Cartman in South Park). This good Barry will not be alone. During the adventure we will meet many residents of Bright Falls: a radio host, a sheriff, a psychiatrist, a paranoid old lady, a forester, a waitress or even old metalheads. Each time the dialogues are accompanied by a staging bordering on the strange, which makes them all more suspicious than the others. Both Alan and the player will fall into a kind of paranoia and won’t know who to trust anymore.. Nightmare or reality, the game constantly plays with this ambivalence. Furthermore, the title refers to it: Alan Wake is a writer, and his initials therefore form A.WAKE, “awakened” in French.

posterity

In the end, the game just keeps us awake for ten hours, plus a little exploration and the ability to restart the game on the Nightmarish difficulty setting. With this mode it is possible to offer a good dose of challenge and, above all, to discover entire sections of the scenario through unpublished manuscripts. The gameplay, while effective, quickly reaches its limits. This is truly the story that will carry us to the end. In 2010, two chapters will be added in the form of DLC that will complete the game’s storyline. Alan Wake was well received by critics (83%). metacritical). The title was voted “Game of the Year 2010” by Time, the psychological and adult aspect of the software has conquered the famous American magazine. Then comes Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, still developed by Remedy and published by Microsoft. A spin-off of the game and not a direct sequel.