Alan Wake 2 - Releases 12am ET 10/27

Excited to play. Remedy games are always a treat.

Picked up an EGS copy. Initially I heard performance may not be so great but seems like it will play well with my 3070.

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and the story isnt good enough to offset the shite gameplay

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I think the story gets better when you add in American Nightmare and Control.

Also, while I've mostly stayed away from reviews to avoid spoilers, everything I have read seems to suggest this is a much different kind of game than AW1 (e.g., firmly entrenched in the survival horror genre a la RE2, Dead Space, etc.).

Just played for 6 1/2 hours straight after it got released and I LOVE it. The Twin Peaks vibe in this game might be stronger than in AW1 and there's also a bit of a Deadly Premonition and True Detective vibe. It's just great

I know Remedy said you didn't have to play AW1, American Nightmare, or Control to understand what's going on, and while that's probably true, I feel like people who haven't played AW1, American Nightmare, or Control are going to miss out on so much (i.e., character references, plot references, etc.).

For fans of AW1/American Nightmare/Control I think this is exactly the Alan Wake sequel we all wanted.

The combat has been pretty similar to AW1 but tighter, a bunch of puzzles (but they're ridiculously easy), and I'm really digging the "detective" gameplay elements.

Seems to be running pretty well on PS5. I started on Quality mode which was only 30 FPS w/ a higher resolution, but quickly switched to Performance mode which targets 60 FPS at a lower resolution, and it looks fine to me.

Hope others are enjoying it as well

ETA: I'm playing on the easiest difficulty (called Story mode) because I want to focus on the story/atmosphere for my first playthrough. So the experience might be a bit different for other people playing on harder difficulties (e.g., facing more enemies, having to utilize different tools/strategies/resource management, etc.).

Played through the first chapter this morning.

Definitely seems very story/narrative focused moreso than action/combat, but I suspect that will change as the plot develops.

Getting old school Max Payne vibes with Sam Lake self inserting himself into the game using James McCaffrey as his VA.

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There is like too much shite to play, cant keep up.

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If it helps, Remedy said an initial playthrough of AW2 is only 20-ish hours long and various sites say it takes maybe 30 hours to 100% it.

There are also two expansions planned down the road and they're adding NG+ and photo mode, among other things post-launch.

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do people actually use this mode? it's in a lot of games, along with Xbox/PS having the capture mode as well, and i've only used it a handful of times just to see how it worked. never really went out of my way to capture moments that were cool or anything.

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I hear ya. I've never used a photo mode in any game, but it seems like a lot of people love this feature, because they constantly post screenshots from photo modes in various game subreddits

To be fair, the photo modes in Death Stranding and Nioh/Nioh 2 produce some pretty cool shots, but I don't know why people want those, aside from Reddit karma.

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If it helps, Remedy said an initial playthrough of AW2 is only 20-ish hours long and various sites say it takes maybe 30 hours to 100% it.

There are also two expansions planned down the road and they're adding NG+ and photo mode, among other things post-launch.

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Yeah i guess i just meant im still working through final fantasy and want to play this, spiderman 2, boulders gate, mario wonder and i want to give cyberpunk a try with the expansion.

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These reviews are surprising to me. The first Alan Wake is booty.

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It's been 13 years. The Remedy team has learned quite a bit since then!

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know any good synopsis videos or anything so i could jump into aw2?

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Here's a good video recap (but I'd probably stop at the 14:05 mark because the last minute or so contains footage from AW2 and talks about what to expect in AW2 based on info that was released prior to launch): YouTube

If you'd rather read a recap, GameSpot did a good one but I'd stop reading after this sentence near the end: "a meta nod to the fact that Alan Wake 2 was still a few years off." GameSpot Recap

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would this be a good game for a sit along partner to view?

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If she's a fan of True Detective, Twin Peaks, and psychological horror, probably.

ETA: One other thing to know that I don't think is mentioned in the recaps is that in Control, we get introduced to a janitor named Ahti, who seems to have just appeared in The Oldest House (i.e., the HQ of the Federal Bureau of Control...where Control mostly takes place). A brief description of Ahti:

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Assuming the appearance of an older Finnish man, Ahti appeared without explanation in the Oldest House and has subsequently roamed the building as its "cleaner," while being monitored by the Federal Bureau of Control.

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