It’s not the most visually interesting game given the setting of a northwestern town, with lots of mountains, trees, and abandoned logging and farm structures and equipment (much of the assets being reused through the story). The graphics are very good - you can tell this game was originally built on older tech, but it cleaned up quite well and it runs very smoothly. Those tidbits aside, what else does Alan Wake Remastered bring to the table? Well, it has all-new rendered 4K graphics and a cool video commentary from Sam Lake (both in original and remastered quality). Perhaps we’ll see that released separately. This release, priced very reasonable at just $30, includes the original game and the two DLCs, but unfortunately does not include the American Nightmare spin-off, which takes place two years after the events of the original game (and its DLC). The remaster work was completed by d3t, a co-development studio who have some fine work to their names. I played through the game on a PS5, for example. This release also marks the first time Alan Wake travels outside of its Microsoft Windows and Xbox confines, too. It’s a pretty creepy game, being a psychological thriller, and as we’re in October some folks are looking for such a theme in their gaming. Long-winded intro aside, Alan Wake Remastered is a timely and welcomed release. This is because even though the story is very complicated, it gets you thinking and it challenges you to keep up, not too unlike a good Christopher Nolan film such as Inception or Tenet. Even though I had not played Alan Wake in over a decade before receiving the review code for the remaster, I still remembered some elements of the story. Sam Lake, who is the creative director behind these masterpieces, weaves mind-bending tales of space, time, dreams, and other mechanisms to really enthrall the player. I believe Control is their best work to date, but Alan Wake is a close second. Remedy games also feature outstanding stories and characters. It has been long enough now since I played through Quantum Break I don’t recall if it had any references to their other games, but suffice it to say that Remedy makes it a point, and increasingly so, to really develop their own game world and universe. In Alan Wake, there is a tip of the hat to Max Payne, including a voiceover from the original actor. If you have played Control, the events that take place in the fictional northwestern town of Bright Falls from Alan Wake are directly referenced. One aspect of Remedy that I like is that there are references to their games within their other games. Remedy has several other great games in their portfolio as well, including Max Payne, Quantum Break, and more recently, the instant classic Control. Alan Wake went on to have two story-continuing DLCs ( The Signal and The Writer), as well as a spin-off game called Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. I reviewed it way back then and enjoyed it (despite the state of that old post, I would recommend reading that article as a supplement to this one as the core game is exactly the same). Eleven years ago, Remedy Entertainment released Alan Wake for PC and Xbox 360.
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