Summary
- Alan Wake 2 is Remedy Entertainment's weirdest and most complex game to date, pushing the boundaries of supernatural concepts and mind-bending narratives.
- The game features a surprise musical sequence that perfectly blends unsettling fun with comedy and horror, showcasing Remedy's unique storytelling style.
- The Old Gods of Asgard, an alias for the band Poets of the Fall, contribute to the game's musical numbers, including a climactic lakeshore battle, adding to the overall immersive experience.
If the last decade has proven anything, it's that Remedy Entertainment isn't afraid to get weird with it. While Max Payne was a fairly straightforward series, it still had its stranger moments. Though, 2010's Alan Wake was the first time Remedy properly dived into weird territory, with plenty of supernatural concepts and melodramatic voiceovers to go around. Then Quantum Break tried to meld a live-action TV show with a video game, and Control decided to go all-in on mind-bending gameplay and narratives. But somehow, Alan Wake 2 takes things even further.
While Remedy has experimented with some pretty out-there concepts before, Alan Wake 2 turns things up to 11, being by far the weirdest, most complex game that Remedy has ever created, and by most accounts, it might also be the studio's best. Though it starts off as a simple murder mystery, Alan Wake 2 gets real strange real fast, and with every new chapter things are pushed further and further, eventually resulting in a surprise musical sequence that really only Remedy could pull off.
Alan Wake 2's Musical Sequence is Something Only Remedy Could Pull Off
For those unaware, Alan Wake 2 is split into two halves. One half of the game sees players take control of FBI Agent Saga Anderson as she attempts to solve the mystery behind a series of ritualistic cult murders in the town of Bright Falls, while the other half sees players take control of Alan Wake as he tries to escape the Dark Place, an alternate dimension that he's been trapped in for the last 13 years. While Saga's half of the story tends to remain quite grounded, Alan's dives into the stranger side of the series, and there's one sequence in particular that exemplifies this.
Alan Wake 2's Musical Sequence Is a Perfect Blend of Unsettling Fun
Coming about halfway through Alan Wake's side of the story during Initiation: Chapter 4 "We Sing," Alan's journey through the Dark Place is interrupted by a 20-minute-long musical sequence, and it's one of the best moments in the entire game. The wildest of Alan Wake 2's Dark Place hallucinations, "We Sing" sees players make their way through a dark void, made to look like the backstage area and set of a talk show, all while the game's live-action cast performs a musical on the screens above.
Remedy has tried to put live-action in its games for almost a decade now, and it's never really gelled with audiences before. But here, Alan Wake 2's live-action thrives. The concept of a huge musical number coming right in the middle of an otherwise incredibly intense survival horror game is already absurd enough on its own, but when it's paired with the game's actors actually singing and dancing in live-action, things get even stranger, and that perfectly suits the unsettling and confusing nature of the Dark Place.
It also helps that the musical number itself is absolutely incredible. Titled The Herald of Darkness, this lengthy track was written and mostly performed by The Old Gods of Asgard, an alias for the band Poets of the Fall, a group that Remedy has worked with since Max Payne 2. A hard rock song with plenty of musical theater dazzle sprinkled in, The Herald of Darkness' lyrics essentially recap the events of the first Alan Wake, albeit in an extremely over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek way. Remedy is known for taking some pretty big swings, and this Alan Wake 2 musical sequence may be its biggest, but also its best, blending comedy and horror in a way that seemingly only Remedy can do.
The Old Gods of Asgard actually provide a number of songs for Alan Wake 2, including its climactic lakeshore battle, and the name appears in-universe as the band that Tor and Odin are a part of.
Alan Wake 2
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
- Released
- October 27, 2023
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Remedy Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- Epic Games
- Engine
- Northlight Engine
- Franchise
- Alan Wake
WHERE TO PLAY
A string of ritualistic murders threatens Bright Falls, a small-town community surrounded by Pacific Northwest wilderness. Saga Anderson, an accomplished FBI agent with a reputation for solving impossible cases arrives to investigate the murders. Anderson’s case spirals into a nightmare when she discovers pages of a horror story that starts to come true around her.
Alan Wake, a lost writer trapped in a nightmare beyond our world, writes a dark story in an attempt to shape the reality around him and escape his prison. With a dark horror hunting him, Wake is trying to retain his sanity and beat the devil at his own game.
Anderson and Wake are two heroes on two desperate journeys in two separate realities, connected at heart in ways neither of them can understand: reflecting each other, echoing each other, and affecting the worlds around them.
Fueled by the horror story, supernatural darkness invades Bright Falls, corrupting the locals and threatening the loved ones of both Anderson and Wake. Light is their weapon—and their safe haven — against the darkness they face. Trapped in a sinister horror story where there are only victims and monsters, can they break out to be the heroes they need to be?
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Metascore
- 90
