2023-06-11 12:20:02
Game News Alan Wake 2: This cult horror game is back, its first episode marked the industry!
Alan Wake 2 is scheduled for October 17, 2023. Four months from its release, let’s take a look back at the genesis of the series.
In December 2021, Alan Wake II is – finally – made official during the Game Awards! A highly anticipated sequel, which will be released on October 17, 2023 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. It is therefore the sequel to the first part, soberly titled Alan Wake. It is developed by Remedy, a Finnish studio behind the first two Max Paynes. Basically, the team had the ambition to make it a scripted open-world – a goal that was a little too big for a small team with limited resources. Microsoft will be interested in the project and will decide to publish it on Xbox and PC, inflating the budget in passing. 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 narration and a concrete atmosphere. The game will finally be released on May 14, 2010 for Xbox 360 and March 2, 2012 for PC.
The game is therefore an action-adventure game tinged with “survival-horror” where you play Alan Wake, a New York writer who has suffered from blank page syndrome for two years. His wife, Alice, then decides to offer him a vacation in a small port town in the United States: Bright Falls. But between the mountains, the forests and the lakes, hide old Indian legends, abandoned mines and repeated disappearances.. On the couple’s first evening, Alice mysteriously disappears at the bottom of a lake. Alan, trying to save her, will wake up a week later in a car accident. This is how the adventure begins.
To scare by revealing
Alan Wake gives a very special place to the narration, which is like a giant puzzle. Throughout the adventure, the player comes across pages from a book called “Departure”, written by Alan Wake himself (but of which he has no memory). Each of them tells of events that have just happened or are regarding to happen, which contributes to the atmosphere. One of the first excerpts of the manuscript tells us that we are currently being chased by a man armed with a chainsaw, while there is, in the immediate future, no one around. The minutes that follow are particularly oppressive. Voluntarily revealing passages to come is something quite original for the genre, which gives Alan Wake a rather unique entity. We are no longer in fear of the unknown but in the apprehension of a fatality that will strike at any moment.
Another originality of the soft, to survive, it is necessary to use all kinds of light sources – very often that of the flashlight – to make disappear the “black mist” of the enemies and to make them vulnerable to firearms. Survival-horror inspiration obliges, the ammunition and the batteries of the lamp are in limited quantity. However, combat is not always the best option. It will often be necessary to flee towards the nearest lamp post, becoming a real refuge where life goes back and where progress is saved. Via these mechanics, the game is not really scary, and rarely uses “jump scare”. It would be more accurate to call the game oppressive, which is somewhat reminiscent of the formula of the Silent Hill series.
A game with strong inspirations
Also oppressive, because Alan Wake openly draws inspiration from Stephen King short stories. The game also opens with a quote from the author: “Nightmares are not logical, and explaining them would be pointless; it would be contrary to the poetry of fear”. In particular, there are references to Sink or swimwith the strange black mist that surrounds the enemies, but especially at Bag of bones et Misery : the hero is a writer, in a house located on a lake, there is a strange atmosphere and the hero does not know if he is dreaming or not. To complete this dark canvas, there are big nods to Shining Stanley Kubrick, with enemies who often attack armed with an axe, like Jack Nicholson in the feature film (which Alan Wake will not hesitate to recall); to the series Twin Peaks David Lynch, for all visuals, sets, and dialogue staging; at the tv show The Twilight Zone (The Twilight Zone in English), whose credits and tone are used for the fictional show “Night Springs”. And especially a writing very similar to Shutter Island by author Dennis Lehane, in the symbols used.
Welcome to Bright Falls
But a story would be nothing without its characters. Apart from Alan, we find Barry Wheeler, childhood friend and agent of the writer, who plays the role of “the funny sidekick”, allowing to relax the atmosphere a little (he is also doubled in VF by Christophe Lemoine, French voice of Eric Cartman in South Park). This good Barry will not be alone. During the adventure, we will meet many inhabitants of Bright Falls: a radio host, a sheriff, a psychiatrist, a paranoid old lady, a forest ranger, a waitress or even old metalheads. Each time, the dialogues are served by a staging bordering on the strange, making them all more suspicious than the others. Both Alan and the player will fall into a kind of paranoia, not knowing who to trust anymore.. Nightmare or reality, the game constantly plays with this ambivalence. Moreover, the title refers to this: 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, to which is added a little exploration and the possibility of restarting the game on nightmarish difficulty. With this mode, it is possible to impose a good dose of challenge and especially to discover whole sections of the scenario, via unpublished manuscripts. However, the gameplay, although effective, quickly shows 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, concluding the storyline of the game. Alan Wake was well received by critics (83% on Metacritic). The title was voted “Game of the Year 2010” by Time, the psychological and adult aspect of the software having 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.
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