Alan Wake’s return to its horror roots feels a bit lacking compared to the main game, but its examination of artificial intelligence and the relationship between art and science arguably belies some of the boldest meta-commentary yet.
After a rollicking romp through the multiple perspectives of the Night Springs DLC earlier this year, Alan Wake 2 returns to what it does best with its two story expansions: cranking up the terror, turning down the lights, and letting everything All returned to normal. Shadowy ghouls lurch out of the darkness, bringing an ancient fear to you. In “The Lake House,” FDC Agent Kieran Estevez finally takes us outside the most secretive and enclosed areas of Cauldron Lake—a titular research laboratory that lurks in its brutal, concrete depths. There lurks an experiment that has gone horribly wrong, threatening to trigger another catastrophic event that could bring disaster to the nearby town of Bright Falls.
Although the story takes place before the official start of the main game, both in terms of setting and new protagonist, “The Lake House” looks more like a preview of Remedy’s “Control 2” sequel than the “Alan Killer” of the same name. This three-hour tour through the lab’s dark, paint-splattered corridors is a tense and eerie affair from start to finish, but feels a bit lacking in what made last year’s Alan Wake 2 so special – and also That said, it has more in common with the bland side of Saga’s story than with Allen’s reality-warping writer’s chessboard sequences.
This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and is a very enjoyable standalone bundle for those who’ve already purchased the game’s expansion pass. But when you put it all together, with the surprisingly sparse number of enemy encounters and the wealth of story exposition provided through film reels, computer emails, and audio log diaries, you can’t help but feel like you just have to Halfway through the content. Experience Alan Wake 2 here. It lacks that atmospheric rocket-punch to really give this bold and ambitious game the final, jaw-dropping flourish it arguably deserves – the aural and visual drag that pulls it all away It all ties together and leaves you in no doubt that Remedy is a studio at the top of its game. its power. You want Alan Wake 2 to be a bang, not a whimper. But too often, for me at least, The Lake House simply fails rather than ignites something deeper.
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Kieran himself is a very affable man. Her no-nonsense sarcasm and dry humor make her feel just as capable and funny as Saga in the main game, but she also has moments of vulnerability that make her highly empathetic. This gives her a winning, every-woman quality that makes you truly believe in her ominous retelling of events through voiceover, telling you this is going to be a terrible day at the office.
Since Lake House Lab appears to be abandoned upon arrival, the main goal of Kieran’s journey is to obtain a higher security clearance card in order to infiltrate the facility’s lower, more dangerous floors. As she walks down each floor, you’ll need to use some light deduction work to restore power to certain areas, enter various locked doors, and – once or twice – change by using the controlled power core switch The nature of reality overcomes obstacles. In Alan Wake terms, the latter is pretty much the same as Eren’s lightbulb, in that moving a core from one location to another and flipping a nearby switch will flash new landscapes, opening up new paths that were previously blocked. . It would be nice if it relied more on these puzzles as the expansion progressed. Alas, they’re used so infrequently and are so painful to execute that they barely feel like puzzles at all.
Worst of all, there are large swathes of Lake House where all you do is wander empty hallways, with virtually no threat to get your adrenaline pumping. There’s a lot of document reading, a lot of digging through empty drawers for ammo and supplies to prepare you for encounters that never seem to happen, and there were several times where I kept hoping something would. As with the main game, the sound design and varied visuals do a lot of the heavy lifting to keep the player feeling tense and tense, but aside from the crisp combat sequences, that uneasiness quickly fades when you read this When it comes to important case files, its blast horn becomes nothing more than a thrill you wish could be toned down a bit.
To its credit, there’s a lot to explore inside the lake house. For example, one level is completely optional, and the Library Archives is a labyrinth-like place that has no real impact on the overall story, but contains an important teaser for Remedy’s next step into the interconnected universe concept. Likewise, there are several high-clearance rooms on other floors that you can return to for additional background if you wish, but this isn’t necessary to reach the end credits either. Even within its tightly bounded concrete walls, its environment feels freer than anywhere we’ve visited in the main game, and Remedy’s mind will find plenty to enjoy here – although I myself read and listened to what’s available here All of it, a fair amount of it feels like it’s been repeated elsewhere in the facility before, and only some of it really gives us a sense of what’s really going on here.
However, what’s going on here is absolutely fascinating to me. Think immediately about the dangers and uses of artificial intelligence in artistic creation, and the folly of trying to scientifically quantify the creative process, reducing raw, unknowable emotional sparks to numbers and units that can be measured and predicted on a computer. As you can see from the picture, the underlying arc of “The Lake House” is the most indulgent shot of pure Alan Wake meta-commentary. No doubt some will find it too pretentious and off-putting, immediately placing it in the same cringe-worthy category as the original Alan Wake and its perceived status as poorly written modern crime fiction. Imitation. But that’s exactly why I love Alan Wake 2, because it’s Saga’s chapters and her infinitely natural storytelling that expose how intentionally bad Alan Wake 2’s writing is (although I’m sure more than a dozen Alan Wake years ago) The gap between each game also helped Remedy’s writing team mature a bit in the meantime).
To me, Allen’s tailoring and exaggerated writing style were intentional and thoughtful choices on Remedy’s part, and as The Lake House unfolds, it’s really put under the microscope. In both games, we see the impact Alan’s words have on his environment, and the chief scientists leading the Lake House laboratory are completely enchanted by it – even if one of them believes that painting can harness the power of painting. The interdimensional rift that powers the center of Cauldron Lake is more effective than Allen’s book. As everyone competes to perfect their work with live (and unfortunately) human test subjects, a schism begins to form between the powerful precision of the written word and the open, more interpretive nature of traditional art.
Admittedly, these paintings don’t quite suit me. By the time Kieran arrives, the artist at the center of the story has entered an angry, abstract phase of his career, and we get little sense of how the uses of his paintings changed over time and the monsters that unfortunately emerged from them , the pastel oil slicks are pretty monotonous – if only because all you can do is run away from them for most of the expansion, since your FBC weapons are completely ineffective against them. Perhaps this is a symptom of its truncated runtime, but Remedy never feels like these paintings differ from Allen’s writing and how they affect change in the world in a unique way.
Alas, we never get the chance to experience Alan’s side of this research project again – Alan himself is apparently missing in action, and the lake house suffers from his absence. That said, it does become the most important thing about the expansion when a team of scientists attempts to scientifically recreate his work, analyzing the themes, content, and word count of each sentence in order to enter it into a special automatic typewriter. One of the works. An eerie and haunting set. However, despite their best efforts, they can’t quite nail down Allen’s style, and the two lead scientists’ growing despair at failing to achieve their respective “creative” breakthroughs permeates every aspect of the game. sections—from angry film diaries, to increasingly passive-aggressive email chains on the computer, to whiteboards full of questions and crazy doodles. The tension between these two antagonists is as palpable as the menacing and possessed staff stalking the halls behind them, and they make for a great pair of villains.
Of course, for me, leaving the lake house was just saying, ‘Okay, maybe this is means becomes a parody of the main game, because that’s all it’s trying to say about artificial intelligence and artistic quantification”. That would be a woefully pathetic excuse to erase Lake House’s potential missteps, let alone its new How unthreatening the paint monster is, not to mention how underused its equally novel (and frankly incredible) Ghostbusters-esque paint-busting rocket launcher is, why not on top of all of that. What about going the extra mile to make it feel more unique? Instead, most of the time it just settles on something safe and familiar, never reaching those same dizzying heights you know it can reach.
However, in another reality, you can also see that this is exactly what the lake house is wasIndeed, I keep trying, and there’s a part of me that silently respects a game that might be able to adjust itself creatively so that it can stroke its chin a little longer and have an internal dialogue with itself. If Remedi did choose to do it here, it would be extremely silly, but also totally in the vein of Alan Wake. Because let’s face it, if it’s willing to ape the candy cane fantasies of Mills and Boone’s romance, the weird novels and goofy lore of in-game coffee brands, and the surreal, temporal metaness of in-game actors and creators A game within a game – as it does in every episode of the Night Springs DLC – in Alan Wake, Remedy has a sense that nothing is truly out of scope. I love that this game can even accommodate such silly and ridiculous ideas. That’s why Alan Wake and the Remedy Connected Universe will always be subjects of fascination for me, and why The Lake House, despite its flaws and inconsistencies, is ultimately a fitting end to this dizzying horror story .
Remedy Entertainment provided a copy of Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Edition for review.
