Inside the subway entrance, the Caldera Station scene’s blocked exit could be altered with the Missing FBI Agent cue card, clearing the way and adding a bloody trail, finessed by an overlain typewriter animation. By nervously exploring its corridors, Wake can find story threads or “Echoes” in the Dark Place and use collected nuggets of information to rewrite scenes, opening new pathways in the environment. The Writer’s Room is similar in function to Saga Anderson’s Mind Palace, but instead of a case board we have a plot board complete with hastily pinned cue cards. The puzzling gets even deeper with the Writer’s Room, a pocket dimension Wake can dip into at any point that takes the shape of the study in Bird Leg Cabin, where Wake found himself trapped at the end of the first game. Hold the A button and a trash pile becomes a subway entrance, and so on. Indicated by a bulb symbol on-screen, Wake can transfer captured light charges to other locations to solve puzzles. Remember the Clicker, the severed light switch from the first game? The Angel Lamp is what used to be attached to it. The Dark Place is something of an open world, with an on-screen pointer guiding Wake toward erratic light sources, which you can then store in Wake’s Angel Lamp. Throughout the 40-minute hands-off demo, my eyes were darting around constantly, trying to catch every word. Nearly every piece of Dark Place copy, from the infographic posters to the text on subway cards, has some mind-tickling reference to dialogue from the first game that hammers home Wake’s indoctrinated state of confusion. From the blunt “Don’t Write” and “You Die Here” to the “Return” and “Initiation” tags that taunt Wake about the parts of the monomyth he is yet to actualize, there’s a sinister breadth to the Dark Place’s forces of coercion. That old trope of narrative graffiti is given a refresh to show how the Dark Place is manipulating Wake and impeding his escape. Near the Thermos, which you’ll use to save, an interactive shoebox appears in Alan Wake 2’s break rooms, which may be a lore-friendly storage solution or a means to transfer items between the two protagonists. There also seems to be an inventory system, with Wake picking up a health item from a subway locker during the demo. Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing In the sequel, the Taken appear slower but more erratic and deadly, lurching and teleporting toward Wake to catch him off guard. Alan Wake’s worst quality was its tedious combat, where hordes of Taken would constantly surround the player and club them to death. Subtle cues differentiate them from the base enemies, so perceptive players can pick their battles.Īlan Wake 2’s combat is Remedy’s take on Resident Evil 4, with an over-the-shoulder camera, heavy recoil, and a lifesaving dodge. Adding to the paranoid atmosphere, illuminated Taken often look like Wake, and non-hostile entities called Fade-Outs follow you, taunting and goading you into wasting precious light or ammo. “Have you lost the plot?” they’ll sneer as they throw you to the ground. The Taken return from Alan Wake as flickering silhouettes that wander the Dark Place, which you must expose with your lamp before disposing of the bodies beneath. While there, Wake needs to leverage his power to rewrite reality and escape this place to reunite with his wife, Alice, but it won’t be easy, given that his surroundings are actively working against him. New York is Wake’s former home and the setting of the Alex Casey crime novel series that gave him his reputation as a writer. This is the other side of Alan Wake 2’s story, running parallel to FBI agent Saga Anderson’s Pacific Northwest trek to investigate a series of ritualistic murders.Ī new preview we recently checked out focused on Wake’s portion of the game, set in the Dark Place, which appears to Wake as a hard-boiled vision of the Big Apple. Inky hair frames his face as he wanders through a hostile dream world, clutching a puzzle-solving lamp and a revolver. He’s ditched his slouchy hoodie for a button-down, but kept the funny jacket with the old-fashioned elbow patches. Alan Wake has been trapped in the Dark Place for 13 years.
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