From a technical point of view, it's breathtaking stuff - never showy or obvious - just very slick and integral to the overall style of the game. Real actors exist and mix & match with their virtual counterparts seamlessly, scenes switch from real life to digital and combine aspects of both with ease - making for a world with the power to truly twist your outlook. We've seen it a few times with varying degrees of success in the likes of Quantum Break, but in Wake's new nightmare it's used to truly impressive effect. Not perfect, but a big improvement for the series.Īlan Wake 2 also feels like Remedy fully mastering their use of mixed media in a game, too. They've got the Twin Peaks/XFiles/90's Twilight Zone vibe down to a tee, they've upped the ante on their trademark hallucinatory sequences and incredible symbolic imagery, and they've combined all of this with combat that actually feels pretty good.

Of course we don't want to ruin anything, it's all about unravelling the mystery for yourself, just know that Remedy has really nailed the writing and world-building this time around. This is, by some margin, Remedy's masterpiece a confident, mature and bold slice of survival horror that treats its players like grown-ups whilst delivering a delightfully messed up story that's in another league to the one told with the original game back in 2010. We are big fans of Control, Max Payne and the whole shared universe that Remedy has been building up around its games though - we dig the whole overarching vision - we just weren't sold on Alan's first outing due to combat that had us bailing on the adventure out of frustration.Īnd so, from a position of 'well, let's just see what happens' we've been absolutely blown out of our chairs by Alan Wake 2, there's really no other way to put it.

So, over at Pure Xbox we headed into Alan Wake 2 perhaps not quite as excited as some are for this highly-anticipated return to Bright Falls.

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