- Publisher: Epic Games
- Release Date: Oct 27, 2023
- Also On: PC, Xbox Series X
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Oct 31, 2023Those 13 years should have led to something better, and it’s surprising that they haven’t. Alan Wake’s gunplay has gone from dull to frustrating in the sequel, while its venture into true survival horror has been plagued by predictability and amateurish jump scares. Its narrative has a few memorable moments and is able to periodically use its outlandish antics to its advantage, yet it is still dragged down by its refusal to provide enough rewarding resolutions to its litany of riddles. Alan Wake 2 doesn’t improve on what made the original such a cult hit and is instead an uncharacteristically rough draft that needed more edits. It’s not a lake or an ocean. It’s a disappointment.
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Oct 26, 2023A peculiar sequel that at times seems to be purposefully undermining the best elements of the original, but it still gets just enough right to please both existing fans and potential newcomers.
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Nov 6, 2023Alan Wake 2 tries to do many things. Some of them work better than others, but I still think we have to appreciate that effort for not being "the typical Triple-A". Not perfect, but different. [Recommended]
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Nov 6, 2023Wake remains a fascinating protagonist, prickly and sometimes unlikeable, which only makes him feel more human and authentic. Saga holds her own, balancing Wake’s ego and attitude out with warmth, though she is not without her own demons to overcome. But it’s all the strange, personal, uncompromising moments in the story that really make the game sing with a distinct and singular creative energy. In a review of the new film All of Us Strangers, my friend, the film critic Walter Chaw, observes that art actually becomes more deeply relatable and more universal as it becomes more personal. “The miracle of being human,” he writes, “is the more you flay your chest, lay it bare to muscle, then sinew, then bone, exposing your heart fluttering there in its cage, the more familiar your humiliation becomes. The only universal is the personal.”
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Oct 26, 2023I already consider it a modern horror classic, one that opens up a veritable ocean of possibilities for Remedy’s future. If it takes another 13 years for a game of Alan Wake 2’s caliber to come along again, it will have been well worth the wait.
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Oct 27, 2023In Alan Wake 2, you are displaced by variety, undermined by unpredictability, and unprepared by uncertainty; it’s a tide of dark design that drowns and leaves you in fetters of what’s expected from survival horror. You will never be comfortable or safe.
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