Alan Wake 2looks appropriately surreal and eerie, but that was never an issue that Remedy’s action-adventure game had.Alan Wakedrew from psychological horror in ways that games likeSilent Hillhad, and therefore it would not be surprising for fans to misremember it as belonging to the survival-horror genre instead. Its tones certainly exceeded in gifting frights, its combat was much more than one-note gunplay, and its story was whimsically dark while also being meta—a Remedy signature employed to its best potential.
Its sequel, however, will need to do a lot more in order to win fans over. Survival horror has become so prominent in gaming lately that there are clearer inspirations drawn from one franchise to another, with obvious comparisons being tethered betweenResident EvilandSilent Hill,OutlastandAmnesia, and many more.Alan Wake 2will surely take some cues from popular survival-horror franchises, but its gameplay trailer at Summer Game Fest needs to show what makes it different.
RELATED:Alan Wake 2’s Digital Exclusivity is a Double-Edged Sword
Alan Wake 2 Needs to Be More Than the Survival Horror It Draws Inspiration from
Alan Wake 2did technically reveal gameplay during its trailer at the PlayStation Showcase last month, but what it revealed is far from unique or distinct. Saga Anderson was poised in a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective to depict her as a playable protagonist, but that perspective has become a staple in modern AAA survival horror.
This also doesn’t differ too starkly from the original game, besides the fact that the camera would withdraw much further from the protagonist at times. Indeed,Alan Wakealready offered something authentic from the third-person action-adventure games that came out before it.Alan Wake’s light-based mechanicswere a welcome emphasis that stood out from traditional gunplay, for example, and made the player’s firearms feel rightfully secondary or inadequate otherwise.
Light was paramount in making enemies vulnerable to physical damage, but light sources could be used exclusively to wipe out hordes of shadowy enemies if players had flash bangs and a loaded flare gun equipped. The transition to being a survival-horror game can’t be taken lightly, and Remedy will have needed to come up with a way to make the action-adventure game’s mechanics much more horrifying if it intends to not only compete with other horror games, but also earn its place in the genre.
If not in combat, light mechanics could be further exaggerated in terms of exploration.Exploration inAlan Wakemainly revolved around finding manuscript pages, coffee thermoses, and hidden caches throughout generally linear environments. The woods would always be panic-inducing, but the time players spent there was less about enjoying the cloying terror of a dark setting and more about racing from generator to generator.
This still created incredible suspense, but it took away slightly from the atmospheric horror that the game’s environments could have instilled if the game had given itself enough time to breathe between enemy ambushes. Of course, being an action-driven game, it makes sense why this was not the case.
But in either ofAlan Wake 2’s split story paths, it would be wonderful to see survival-horror elements peppered throughout, and not just in its approach to cinematic combat. The sequel has an intriguing hook in its favor with a string of ritualistic murders that Anderson will be pursuing, and how much of Wake’s actual writing will affect that is yet to be seen. If its narrative pursues a survival-horror angle even further, then that could help to reinforce legitimate horrors that the player will hopefully encounter.
By honing in on light sources andAlan Wake’s writer manifestations,Alan Wake 2could easily carve its own path for other survival-horror franchises to tread. But if its light source mechanics have been compromised in any way, it will be much harder to distinguish it apart from survival-horror games that have come before it.
Alan Wake 2launches on August 03, 2025, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Edition and Pre-Order Bonuses Revealed
