Alan Wake 2

[Ikawaru]

Well color me impressed! It appears to be borrowing the aesthetics of RE4R and making it a truly grounded survival horror experience from the get-go. This is great news for some of us that felt a bit wanting after completing RE4R. It's like Remedy came out of nowhere and said "Don't worry, we got this ".

Will be following closely. It may deliver the goods, it may not, but this is one Hell of a first impression!

 

[Turo602]

I think the game looks great and I love the new more Resident Evil-like presentation. Not sure how I feel about playing as some random agent. As long as Alan is playable an equal amount of time or more, then I'll get over it. But I'm sure the story will get me over it eventually anyway. Especially since it seems they've been directly giving us a glimpse of the plot since Quantum Break. Though, I'm completely bummed there's no physical release. Seriously put a damper on the whole thing for me. Gonna have to hold out until they do release it physically or it gets a huge price cut digitally.

 

[Ikawaru]

A side note, and just an obvervation and not a critique, what is it with this sudden explosion of villains in horror games with strong "tree" themes? I think it's cool and interesting and all, I'm just wondering where it all came from xD

RE9, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (if that ever comes out), Alan Wake 2 and many others appear to be implementing dark and mysterious big baddies with cult-themes around the woods and nature. Curious to see how this trend plays out.

 

[Jonipoon]

I love it. Everything from the presentation, visuals and story looks incredible and I can't wait to play it. This is set to be 100% survival horror, whereas the first Alan Wake was more of an "action adventure" set in a horror landscape. Although I enjoyed the first one back when it was released, a more recent playthrough made me realize its many flaws in terms of gameplay, worldbuilding and story beats. Since it was originally designed as an open-world game you can't really blame the end product looking the way it did. For this sequel however, the developers have been fully committed to a structured single player experience from the very start, and therefore I have high hopes for this game to deliver.

It appears to be borrowing the aesthetics of RE4R and making it a truly grounded survival horror experience from the get-go. This is great news for some of us that felt a bit wanting after completing RE4R.

I'd say it borrows more heavily from RE2 remake rather than RE4 remake, especially considering there will be two playable scenarios that intertwine. The setting also gives off a bit "Silent Hill"-ish vibe with its atmosphere and psychological aspects.

 

[Ikawaru]

Maybe one of the reasons RE is in such a sorry state quality-wise due to the fact it has no proper competition. 'Silent Hill' stopped being a proper competitor a long time ago so if Remedy and Epic Games can provide this an deliver smashingly good survival horror games, everyone, especially us players, win!

What I like about Epic Games is that they are almost a completely private company run by Tim Sweeney and venture capitalists so they are not beholden to investors and can pretty much do as they please and let Remedy design any kind of game they want with no strings attached. The only investor they have is Tencent, which is a huge software conglomerate based in Hong Kong so I'll leave it at that and say that this could be the ultimate survival horror competition run by two very different types of companies. Game on!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Forests have always been a good setting for horror games, especially now that hardware is so capable and they can crank up the graphics. Forests done well in horror games have fog and moonlight. Some of my most immersive memories in horror games was when I played Days Gone on Survival II with no upgrades, without sleeping or fast travel. It often has you riding the bike through dark forests with thick fog and moonlight flickering through the trees, while you hear the shrill screams of freaks as you putter along on your stock ride at speeds that leave you vulnerable to being knocked off it as they pounce at you.

I hope to hell Sony finally gets a clue and realizes a LOT of horror fans would love to have a Days Gone 2 to play. There's no reason not to, especially now that Survival Horror is making such a huge comeback. They ended the first game with a definite cliffhanger about the freaks evolving, which has the potential to make the game even better. What would happen if the freaks evolved to the point where hordes would work together? The possibilities are endless. It also makes me think a pretty decent video game could be made from the latest Planet of the Apes movies. I know it's not common, but every once in a while games made from movies get it right.

 

[Ikawaru]

Bringing live action back to survival horror after, uh, 27 years.

 

[Jonipoon]

...So I watched the first 12 minutes of gameplay footage from the Gamescom demo, and while the graphics and atmosphere looks incredible I feel like they're dropping the ball with the overuse of psychological effects. It's literally all over the place and I can't help but feel that it's going to be annoying in the long term unless they manage to find the right balance. From the looks of this demo though, I'm worried that they've misunderstood what psychological horror is truly about. Having stuff like "constant whispering voices" coming from inside Alan's mind (which feels like it's been taken straight out of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice) is something that has to be used VERY lightly in order to be an effective horror experience.

If gameplay is constantly overshadowed by whispering voices, hallucinations, trippy effects and stuff like that, the overuse of such things will make the overall experience seem like ”style over substance”. A good comparison would be the 2018 horror film Mandy starring Nicolas Cage, which likewise had an overuse of trippy stylistic effects. I don't know about you guys, but throwing random effects, gibberish and **** into your face is neither "genius" nor "art" in my opinion. And that's coming from a person like myself who enjoys films like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive - films where the random stylistic stuff isn't actually random or stylistic but serve the story in a profound way.

Moderation is the key to a successful psychological horror experience. There's a reason why the Silent Hill games are still considered to be unmatched in the genre to this very day, and that's because they don't shove the horror right into your face like it's some damn puke fest of PTSD. One can only hope that Remedy has found a way to balance the stylistic effects with grounded gameplay, but I have to see much more before I can truly judge the game.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I feel this is Remedy's attempt to really focus on horror elements more. I personally did not like their American Nightmare game, it was too silly and arcade to be scary. I also never played Control because it looked too repetitious and combative to be horror.

I DO like some of Sam Lake's ideas though, but I agree that too much of a certain fear trigger can produce the opposite results. Funny you mention Nick Cage because his film Color Out of Space had good horror potential, and he did an OK job of acting, but it was kind of in your face with the triggers, and it made it feel cheesy.

 

[Ikawaru]

I think I could filter past the overtop psychological horror but only if they get the rest of the game right insofar as gameplay goes especially. That's how I enjoyed 'Control', I thought the story and the overuse of nuanced themes was a bit disconcerting but I just had so much damn fun playing the game that I could overlook its shortcomings. Let's hope Remedy really nails down survival horror gameplay and is paced good with some interesting lore and story bits and perhaps This could deliver similarly or maybe even better.

 

[Ikawaru]

 

[Jonipoon]

I'd better not watch too much of these previews, since I want to keep most of the game a mystery upon first playing it. From the little segments I've seen I do feel like Saga's sections will be the most enjoyable to me personally since they won't overly rely on "trippy effects" to tell a compelling game experience. Perhaps that's the balance I've been looking for.