Resident Evil remakes — that's a positive.
The Alan Wake.
On the Alan Wake 2 works as a stand-alone experience but also has a ton of connections for our fans to find,” he writes. The sequel kicks off with Anderson uncovering pages of a horror story, seemingly written by Wake himself, albeit the events described in it seem to have played out exactly in this realm. It's described that the victim was one of Anderson's colleagues FBI Special Agent Robert Nightingale, who was seemingly chasing after a writer (presumably Wake), before his eventual murder. Tagging along for the case is agent Casey, played by the game's writer Sam Lake himself.
“We were all trapped in a horror story,” Wake continues writing. “The horror story wanted us dead.” We then cut to some raw gameplay footage of Anderson approaching a dilapidated general store with a gun in hand, relying on an over-the-shoulder perspective similar to Resident Evil 4. As she continues investigating the indoors, a masked cultist wielding an axe breaks through the wall and proceeds to attack her. Combat seems to largely revolve around gunplay with no displays of melee combat, which begs the question of ammo conservation. In a related PlayStation blog post, it is revealed that Anderson's story will play out across three hubs: the town of Bright Falls, the dense forest surrounding Cauldron Lake, and the run-down town of Watery. The last one seems to be adorned in cool neon lighting. Meanwhile, Wake's story is set within the Dark Place, which is described as a ‘shifting, looping reality.'
The game's FAQ page confirmed that Alan Wake 2 would not have a physical CD release, with Remedy attributing the reasons to a ‘large number' of people having shifted to digital-only formats. “Secondly, not releasing a disc helps keep the price of the game at $59.99 / €59.99 and the PC version at $49.99 / €49.99. Finally, we did not want to ship a disc product and have it require a for the game — we do not think this would make for a great experience either,” the page reads.
Alan Wake II releases October 17 on Xbox Series S/X. Pre-orders are now live across all platforms.