Alan Wake II: Night Springs Expansion

With its three entertaining scenarios showcasing Remedy Entertainment's narrative and visual design prowess, the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs expansion is a more than worthy DLC for all fans of the base game and the Finnish developer, provided they can keep their expectations in check. The expansion's short length, a little over two and a half hours, and its stripped-down gameplay will inevitably disappoint those looking for something more substantial.

Alan Wake II: Night Springs is a compact collection of standalone stories that veer from entertainingly violent shootouts, to tense stretches of survival horror, before settling on and reveling in the utterly batshit craziness that makes Remedy’s multiverse of madness so keenly absorbing to explore. There’s admittedly not much new here from a gameplay perspective, and it feels like a bit of a tease to play as a version of Control’s heroine stripped of her special abilities in the second episode. Even so, the highs I felt during my short return to Alan Wake’s universe greatly outweighed the lows, and I’d gladly play through another collection of bite-sized side stories if Remedy ever decided to bake another batch. Could there be more Night Springs in the future? Hope springs eternal.

The universe of Alan Wake 2 grows with a small collection of original and fun ideas that play with the unexpected, humor and “the impossible”. A small stroke of genius that will not taste like much, and that has its biggest flaw in the reuse of the scenarios of the base game.