Recently I’ve finished a TV show some of the older audiences reading this might remember: Twin peaks.

The show was definitely something that stood out to me when compared to the never-ending stream of new TV shows popping up every day. I’ve somehow missed the authors work before recently hearing about his death on Instagram. It piqued my curiosity as reading up on google about it gave me the impression of a cult classic.

The main plot of the show focuses on a small town in the rural northeastern Washington where the death of a teenage girl (Laura Palmer) under mysterious circumstances has left the townsfolks in a shocked state. The man to investigate this murder was sent by the FBI, agent Dale Cooper.

Without going too much into spoiler territory we are introduced to a quite interesting cast of characters.

Shelly and Norma (Waitresses at the local town diner), Major Briggs (an Air Force officer), friends of Laura Palmer, the local businessman type Benjamin Horne and the oddest character at the start for me “The Log Lady”.

The shows unfolds in quite an interesting and bizarre manner, with the last season of the show released way later than the first 2 seasons in 2017 (Which for those of you that have seen it, makes for quite a nice Easter egg).

Then it got to me, this feels awfully familiar in terms of atmosphere to a game I’ve played before…

Alan Wake 2 starts with our new hero Saga Anderson and her colleague Alex Casey. We follow two FBI agents as they arrive somewhere in Northern rural Washington to a town called Night Springs to investigate a cult murder. Things happen and we are left with more questions than answers at the start.

The atmosphere in terms of the setting where Alan Wake 2 takes place really reminds you of Twin Peaks. Which is made more obvious if you have played the first Alan Wake unlike me who went into Alan Wake 2 and then the first Alan Wake and finished it off with the “Final Draft” playthrough of the second game.

The following parts of the review will heavily go into spoiler territory, so my advice to you reader is to play the game and experience it yourself first. As the warnings have been done let’s continue.

As I’ve first played Alan Wake 2 and then later on played the first game most details on my first playthrough went completely over my head as the game mostly assumes familiarity with some of the recurring characters that show up (Alan Wake himself even from a certain point of view) the first playthrough of the game was quite interesting with many shocking moments.

In any case the first few hours of the game you spend with Saga Anderson, one of the detectives on the case trying to piece together what happened. The murder victim was an FBI agent, missing for 13 years (Hello Twin Peaks).

As we keep proceeding through the start of the game we slowly get introduced to the genre Alan Wake 2 wants to establish. Those of you that have played the first game and went into this one without looking at the reviews you would probably be surprised as Alan Wake 2 is more of a psychological horror survival type of games, which is not exactly opposite to the first one but due to changes in gameplay I will mention later gives quite an eerie feel most of the time

As the exploration of Cauldron Lake happens and Saga is drawn to pages scattered around the Lake. The pages represent parts of a Manuscript written by Scratch that seems to know exactly what Saga will go through at the point she finds it. (I highly recommend reading them as you go along).

As the body of the dead FBI agent is extracted Saga and Casey return back to the town morgue to see what clues can they find. With eyewitnesses that they have to question Saga and Casey head towards the town Diner. Here the waitress immediately recognizes Saga and seems to know her and about the “accident” she had in town a long time ago. Saga is completely unaware of who this person is and continues on.

We are by now mostly familiar with Sagas mind place where she seems to be able to deduce things that people are hiding from her. When she and Casey return to the Morgue the dead FBI agent Nightingale comes back to life and wreaks havoc as the Sheriff evaporates out of thin air together with the Manuscript pages that he wanted to show to Saga. Seemingly accepting what has happened Saga proceeds onward to find out how to stop the madness.

After finishing the chapter and getting Nightingale to back on the missing list, Casey and Saga find a body washed up on the beach. The person was also missing for 13 years, it was Alan Wake.

Now as the detectives try to reason with Alan Wake we the players are introduced to a new main character: Alan Wake. As he explains his story to the detectives as close as he can to what he remembers happened we take control of him. His world i.e. the “Dark Place” he is trapped in is a twisted version of a larger town.

With playing Alan we truly experience the difference between him in this dimension and Saga in Bright Falls. Alan is much weaker and many more shadow-like enemies are everywhere. Alan Wakes story in the “Dark Place” revolves mostly around him getting out and stopping Scratch/ ”Dark Presence”. As we the players receive the exposition throughout the game that the “Dark Presence” is trying to rewrite reality through Alan Wakes writing into a twisted version of domination through darkness.

Alan Wake is trying to undo this by escaping out of the dark place and finding the “Clicker” which can magnify works of art manifesting them into the real world. Through his perspective we meet an interesting character which has a pretty big connection to other Remedy games (Quantum Break mostly) Mr. Warlin Door. He plays a big role in the story even though his screen time is far smaller than of the two main characters, every moment he is on screen was something great for me. He hosts a talk show with his poster around the “Dark Place” called the “In Between with Mr. Door”. Each of these segments is done beautifully with one segment really sticking out. Alan goes through various locations in the town trying to piece together how to get out and stop the “Dark Presence”.

After piecing together to Saga and Casey what he remembers we are offered a non-linear approach to the story, where we can switch between playing as Saga or as Alan as we like up until a certain point where we have to finish the other characters chapters.

Through Alans route as well as through Sagas route we also meet Ahti, another figure from the famous Remedy game “Control” which was also quite cool to see.

The music in Alan Wake is mostly non-present through most of the gameplay as the atmosphere really relies on sounds and whispers to bring out the horror. However, this does not mean that the music was something they went cheap on, quite the opposite actually!

Each of the major chapters contains a different song that is if you look at the lyrics of it extremely connected to the chapter you have just finished. Besides this there are two absolutely amazing segments in the game. One that you play as Saga (Dark Ocean Summoning) and the other where you play as Alan (Herald of Darkness). The Herald of Darkness was featured at the game awards which at the time of seeing it got me interested in Alan Wake

And the part was almost cut from the game, which Sam Lake has admitted in an interview: Interview with Sam Lake

Both of these chapters are so well placed to break through the horror atmosphere with some really kickass music. Fans of Alan Wake 1 will remember the first musical segment in the first game, and Remedy really turned it up to 11 in Alan Wake 2. There is music here and there of course for example Ahtis Yötön Yö is just wonderful even though I cannot even pronounce a word in Finnish.

If you’ve ever heard the saying that the ending can either improve or impair the overall experience of a medium. Well here these two musical segments make up for quite a lot of what the game does wrong.

Usually this is where the criticism for most people I’ve talked to about this game comes in: The gameplay loop and/or general performance on PC. For reference I played the game on the PS5 and have not experienced the performance issues.

From a story point of view if you enter Alan Wake 2 without playing Alan Wake you would miss quite a lot of characters from the original game, especially one called “Lady of the Light” which comically in the first game held onto a lamp just like the log lady from twin peaks holds onto her log. She is a very important character in the first game and shows up for an entire section in the second game. I understand that sequels are usually considered to be played in order the are released, but I have ventured first into Alan Wake 2 then back into Alan Wake 1 and then back into 2 for the final draft. I think that the game could have used a recap option in the menu where things from the first game would be summarized. Director Sam Lake has though provided IGN with a “The story so far” so that could be something you should take a look before playing but it’s something you’d had to search for. Not something that is implemented right in the game.

Back to the gameplay, Alan Wake 2 falls mostly into the classic third person horror games with the slight deviation that you have to use the flashlight on enemies first before being able to damage them. Most of the gameplay loop and especially so for Saga will consist of flashlight -> shoot -> run, rinse and repeat.

Of course, this is broken by Sagas mind place and Alans writers’ room where the puzzle solving mostly happens

Sagas mind palace is where you can piece clues together and solve cases as well as profile the people you come in contact with. These are really the most important things as everything else in the mind place just serves as a collectibles menu. The flaw I have with this is that you can actually skip mostly everything and not interact almost at all with it if you know what you’re doing and where you should go. I’ve gotten the feel it was meant to be used to really help you the player piece together the case before proceeding to run into the next room filled with shadowy enemies. But if you ignore this mechanic for too long and manage to figure it out on your own you “lose out” on a lot of the “detective work” interactions. And the feel of this mind place system makes people feel more like it’s supposed to be a hint and a chore for some people

Alans writers’ room on the other hand is more or less unavoidable as his mechanic allows you to rewrite the reality in the “Dark Place” with the proper inspiration i.e. something that would fit the horror story as Alan says it. It’s a much cooler mechanic from that point of view with the main puzzle solving for Alan coming from this and his lamp.

Alans lamp is quite interesting as it can either take away light from certain points and store it or use the stored light to light up a certain part of the area. This has the effect of opening up new passages to explore.

The game is mostly linear with levels to explore and the shortage of special gameplay mechanics can be a turn-off for some people. However, from a story point of view the gameplay definitely fits the theme.

After quite a few twists and turns in the story, the “Dark Presence” is eliminated and Alan Wake seems to be stuck in a loop and us not knowing what happened to him. This kept me boggled as to why would they finish their long-expected game with such a cliffhanger. Until I was brough to the main menu again and saw a new option called: “The final draft”.

This is more or less a ng+ mode where all your equipment gets carried over and certain story points offer more detail. With the ending wrapping up much better and making more sense than the original one.

Alan Wake is a beautifully crafted game with an amazing story and definitely worth your time. If you are looking at something bizarre or you’ve played the original or seen Twin Peaks and liked it then this is definitely the right experience. The flaws in gameplay are overshadowed by everything else. I would also advise getting the Disk version as it includes Alan Wake Remastered as well as the DLC which are really great additions.

In the age of constant TV show releases and new “AAAA” titles. Alan Wake 2 offers a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Remedy games are all quite intertwined really bringing out the famous line from the first game: “It’s not a lake it’s an ocean”.

If you liked the review i highly recommend the PS5 disk version, which you can find on amazon (It also includes the Alan Wake remastered as well as a DLC to Alan Wake 2!): Alan Wake 2 PS5