Alan Wake 2 was my "Game of the Year" winner, and this is from a gal who enjoys horror games and movies. I've made my opinion after playing its predecessor and this one, and if you have an idea of both, meaning if you played them then you will probably have a better understanding of the evolution of this franchise. Everything about Alan Wake 2 made it fantastic and I could stay here praising it for a long. However, I have some favorite aspects: its graphics are some of the best I've seen, and its reference to Twin Peaks - in particular The Return - was truly exceptional (if you get it). Just play both games and don't be let down by the bad reviews before making your own idea: I guarantee it will be worth it! You won't be sorry you did purchase it.

10/10 for Story and Graphics

The story of Alan Wake 2 is impressive, after all, this is a cinematic experience packed as a video game, so we should expect a great story/script and excellent visuals. But nothing prepared me for what I found: expect unexpected plot turns that you won't anticipate and an immersive dark, mysterious atmosphere to keep you guessing and constantly on edge. It is easily one of the apex Xbox horror games and nobody can deny it. Graphics? Simply stunning. Like entering into an immersive nightmare. Seriously, lighting effects alone should receive recognition. Alan Wake 2 is an immersive experience in a mysterious and nightmarish first-hand experience that excels in its way.

Stop Complaining: It Is the Story that Makes the Game, not the Action!

Some fans of the original game are complaining about how different its combat is this time around; but here's the deal, sweeties: this time around the story takes center stage - think of it like an interactive thriller with just enough combat to keep things interesting - which was ultimately true of its counterpart's fights as well. Plus... you remember it wrong as in the first Alan Wake, it wasn't exactly spectacular either. I'll say that from the narrative and atmospheric points of view, Alan Wake 2 is hard to match, in any case, one of the two three games that are way above the others. At the same time, I can understand why action-driven players who were looking for a "Last of Us" kind of adventure are not fulfilled. It is not that kind of game.

A Solid Narrative Performance Worthy of GOTY

Alan Wake 2 is more like Resident Evil: Village but much stronger in visuals and even if the gameplay is not taking central stage in either one of them, I feel that Alan Wake 2 comes better in comparison. I know you want to be sure before you get it, and this is good practice anytime you buy Xbox games. But the bad reviews are so much off the point. About Alan Wake 2, some reviews have expressed displeasure with it for being too "woke" or racist, however, these complaints shouldn't be taken too seriously; these trolls are simply trying to stir things up; real gamers, those who appreciate an impressive narrative experience with stunning visuals love Alan Wake 2. Simply stated.

Conclusion: A Suspenseful Story for Fans of Story-Driven Horror Games

Once again, Alan Wake 2 has proven its mettle by keeping my pulse racing! I have already experienced more thrilling moments than I can count, making me jump more often than necessary and loving every scary minute! For fans of suspenseful stories with stunning graphics Alan Wake 2 should not be missed; don't let the critics dissuade you! Just remember this is a story-driven experience so buckle up for one helluva ride; easily one of my top games played this year (trust me: this blonde bombshell has seen many games!) I highly recommend it ;).

Last week, we asked you to shine a light on Alan Wake 2 and the recent release of its photo mode using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s haunting highlights:

arashikages shares Alan standing at the center of black swirling handprint motif splattered on a hotel’s walls

Yuric83 shares Saga moving through a distorted section of forest

jdbolzan shares diner waitress Rose in control during the Night Springs DLC, holding a rifle in front of a banner in town

CamisGui shares the sunlight fading as FBI agent Alex Casey takes in a crime scene

hazelgreen_vp shares a portrait of FBI agent Alex Casey sipping on coffee

denisjurison shares a black and white portrait of Alan staring out the lake house window

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?

THEME: Summer
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 26, 2024

Next week, we’re celebrating the warmth and sun of summer. Share moments from your favorite game filled with summer vibes using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. 

Last week, we asked you to shine a light on Alan Wake 2 and the recent release of its photo mode using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s haunting highlights:

arashikages shares Alan standing at the center of black swirling handprint motif splattered on a hotel’s walls

Yuric83 shares Saga moving through a distorted section of forest

jdbolzan shares diner waitress Rose in control during the Night Springs DLC, holding a rifle in front of a banner in town

CamisGui shares the sunlight fading as FBI agent Alex Casey takes in a crime scene

hazelgreen_vp shares a portrait of FBI agent Alex Casey sipping on coffee

denisjurison shares a black and white portrait of Alan staring out the lake house window

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?

THEME: Summer
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 26, 2024

Next week, we’re celebrating the warmth and sun of summer. Share moments from your favorite game filled with summer vibes using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. 

Summer Game Fest 2024's opening livestream has come to a close after bringing us trailers for upcoming games, updates for released titles and a couple of surprises too! No fear if you missed the showcase though as below you'll find everything announced during Summer Game Fest 2024.

Before we get started though - no, there was no new GTA 6 trailer. Sorry, nothing I can do about that. With that out of the way, let's take a look at what did make an appearance.

Summer Game Fest began with Lego Horizon Adventures showing off how you can play as Aloy from the Horizon series and transform the robotic wastelands into a Lego paradise. It will arrive on PC, PlayStation 5 and even Nintendo Switch during "holiday" 2024.

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Alan Wake 2: Night Springs, the game's first slice of DLC, arrives in a matter of hours, on Saturday 8th June.

And, later this year, the main game will get a boxed version for the first time - after criticism of Remedy's previous decision to launch digital-only.

Remedy boss Sam Lake confirmed the news tonight on the Summer Game Fest 2024 stage, and explained what Night Springs had in store: a trio of 'What if' tales featuring familiar characters, allowing the Alan Wake development team to get even weirder than ever.

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In Alan Wake 2, the titular writer is trying to escape the Dark Place, a shifting, nightmare version of New York, by penning pages and pages of different escape attempts. And some of those stories are set in… Night Springs.

Night Springs… a fictional town, full of the thrilling and bizarre, where the familiar turns strange. Night Springs… a TV show Alan Wake once wrote for. Night Springs… the first expansion to Alan Wake 2, Remedy Entertainment’s award-winning survival horror, is out tomorrow, June 8, on PlayStation 5!

Play Video

In its three self-contained episodes, the Night Springs expansion presents three ways Alan Wake attempted to find his way out of the endless loops of the Dark Place. You will get to play as three characters from the world of Alan Wake. 

While they will be familiar at first glance, they are Night Springs echoes of themselves, archetypes based on characters players have already encountered.

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Put yourself in the shoes of the Number One Fan, who bears a striking resemblance to the waitress Rose Marigold, and fight the shadows in pursuit of truth and love with your trusty shotgun by your side. As the Actor, who may be called “Shawn Ashmore” in some realities and “Sheriff Timothy Breaker” in others, you will take on the mantle of the Time Breaker and defeat the villain hunting for you. And in the North Star episode, unravel coffee-based secrets and cosmic caffeine mysteries as the Sibling, who may seem familiar to those who know Jesse Faden, director of the Federal Bureau of Control.

In Night Springs, players will fight and puzzle their way through familiar, yet transformed locations. Expect more dream logic, twists and turns that only a sci-fi adventure written by Alan Wake can provide, and even more experimenting with different types of media, like a playable arcade game and a comic book.

Trophy hunters and completionists can look forward to 12 new challenges in Night Springs. Share your progress with us on social media using the #NightSprings hashtag! 

Night Springs will be available with the Alan Wake 2 Expansion Pass, which is included in both the digital Deluxe Edition and the upcoming physical Deluxe and Collector’s Editions of Alan Wake 2. PlayStation players who would like to pre-order either of the physical editions can do so starting June 8. If you own the digital Standard Edition, you have the option to upgrade to the Deluxe Edition to access the expansions.

Night Springs is, however, not the end. The Lake House, the second and final expansion to Alan Wake 2, tells the story of a mysterious government facility on the shores of Cauldron Lake, and the time the secret research conducted there went terribly, terribly wrong. Look forward to the Lake House expansion later this year!

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Also available tomorrow – Photo Mode! Everyone who owns Alan Wake 2 will get it as a free update. In the story of the game, Alice Wake, Alan’s wife, is a photographer, and as such the settings of the Alan Wake 2 Photo Mode – such as f-stop, focal length, etc. – have been taken from the art of photography and use photographic values.

As a team, we’ve learned a lot from developing photo mode for Control, and as a result we’re very happy to be able to offer players new features in Alan Wake 2’s Photo Mode. You can now play around with lighting and use several types of lighting such as a spotlight, the flashlight from the game, and of course the inevitable and classic camera flash. This gives all you virtual photographers the tools to create shots that can have a dramatically different mood and look to the aesthetics of what you see in the game.

View and download image

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Of course, we couldn’t overlook the chance to embrace the visual themes from the game in Photo Mode as well. You will have several presets at your disposal that you can quickly select, including ones that enable you to recreate the look of the evidence photos you can find on Saga’s Case Board. The Photo Mode comes with several different filters and frames, including postcard frames from different locations around the game.

View and download image

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Close

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Look around and capture your impressions of the Pacific Northwest and the rainy, night-time New York City of the Dark Place. We’re very much looking forward to seeing what you’ll come up with! Tag your shots with the #AW2Photomode hashtag on social media to share them with the community.

Kromě představení prvního rozšíření pro hru Alan Wake 2 oznámila společnost Remedy Entertainment také fyzické deluxe a sběratelské edice, které vyjdou letos na podzim.

Ještě před vydáním hry Alan Wake 2 společnost Remedy Entertainment potvrdila, že v roce 2024 vydá dvě rozšíření v podobě Night Springs a The Lake House. Podle posledních zpráv bylo první z nich oficiálně představeno.

V přídavku Alan Wake 2: Night Springs si hráči zahrají tři samostatné příběhové kapitoly, přičemž v každé z nich vystupuje jiný hlavní hrdina v bizarních scénářích typu „co kdyby“. Hráči budou hrát za fanynku Alana Wakea a servírku z Oh Deer Diner Rose, šerifa Bright Falls Tima Breakera a dokonce i za Jesseho Fadena, hlavního hrdinu filmu Control. A co víc, rozšíření má vyjít už zítra, 8. června.

Kromě toho společnost Remedy Entertainment také oznámila, že Alan Wake 2, který byl loni uveden na trh pouze jako digitální hra, se konečně dočká fyzického vydání. Letos na podzim se hra dočká fyzické deluxe edice a také fyzické sběratelské edice, o níž by se měly podrobnosti objevit v následujících měsících.

Alan Wake 2 je k dispozici na PS5, Xboxu řady X/S a PC.

Článek Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC vychází dnes, fyzické vydání na podzim se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.

In Alan Wake 2, the titular writer is trying to escape the Dark Place, a shifting, nightmare version of New York, by penning pages and pages of different escape attempts. And some of those stories are set in… Night Springs.

Night Springs… a fictional town, full of the thrilling and bizarre, where the familiar turns strange. Night Springs… a TV show Alan Wake once wrote for. Night Springs… the first expansion to Alan Wake 2, Remedy Entertainment’s award-winning survival horror, is out tomorrow, June 8, on PlayStation 5!

Play Video

In its three self-contained episodes, the Night Springs expansion presents three ways Alan Wake attempted to find his way out of the endless loops of the Dark Place. You will get to play as three characters from the world of Alan Wake. 

While they will be familiar at first glance, they are Night Springs echoes of themselves, archetypes based on characters players have already encountered.

View and download image

Verify your age to view this content.

Put yourself in the shoes of the Number One Fan, who bears a striking resemblance to the waitress Rose Marigold, and fight the shadows in pursuit of truth and love with your trusty shotgun by your side. As the Actor, who may be called “Shawn Ashmore” in some realities and “Sheriff Timothy Breaker” in others, you will take on the mantle of the Time Breaker and defeat the villain hunting for you. And in the North Star episode, unravel coffee-based secrets and cosmic caffeine mysteries as the Sibling, who may seem familiar to those who know Jesse Faden, director of the Federal Bureau of Control.

In Night Springs, players will fight and puzzle their way through familiar, yet transformed locations. Expect more dream logic, twists and turns that only a sci-fi adventure written by Alan Wake can provide, and even more experimenting with different types of media, like a playable arcade game and a comic book.

Trophy hunters and completionists can look forward to 12 new challenges in Night Springs. Share your progress with us on social media using the #NightSprings hashtag! 

Night Springs will be available with the Alan Wake 2 Expansion Pass, which is included in both the digital Deluxe Edition and the upcoming physical Deluxe and Collector’s Editions of Alan Wake 2. PlayStation players who would like to pre-order either of the physical editions can do so starting June 8. If you own the digital Standard Edition, you have the option to upgrade to the Deluxe Edition to access the expansions.

Night Springs is, however, not the end. The Lake House, the second and final expansion to Alan Wake 2, tells the story of a mysterious government facility on the shores of Cauldron Lake, and the time the secret research conducted there went terribly, terribly wrong. Look forward to the Lake House expansion later this year!

View and download image

Download the image

Close

Download this image

Also available tomorrow – Photo Mode! Everyone who owns Alan Wake 2 will get it as a free update. In the story of the game, Alice Wake, Alan’s wife, is a photographer, and as such the settings of the Alan Wake 2 Photo Mode – such as f-stop, focal length, etc. – have been taken from the art of photography and use photographic values.

As a team, we’ve learned a lot from developing photo mode for Control, and as a result we’re very happy to be able to offer players new features in Alan Wake 2’s Photo Mode. You can now play around with lighting and use several types of lighting such as a spotlight, the flashlight from the game, and of course the inevitable and classic camera flash. This gives all you virtual photographers the tools to create shots that can have a dramatically different mood and look to the aesthetics of what you see in the game.

View and download image

Download the image

Close

Download this image

Of course, we couldn’t overlook the chance to embrace the visual themes from the game in Photo Mode as well. You will have several presets at your disposal that you can quickly select, including ones that enable you to recreate the look of the evidence photos you can find on Saga’s Case Board. The Photo Mode comes with several different filters and frames, including postcard frames from different locations around the game.

View and download image

Download the image

Close

Download this image

Look around and capture your impressions of the Pacific Northwest and the rainy, night-time New York City of the Dark Place. We’re very much looking forward to seeing what you’ll come up with! Tag your shots with the #AW2Photomode hashtag on social media to share them with the community.

Night Springs is a fictional TV show within the world of Alan Wake 2, so of course that's also the focus of the meta-horror action game's expansion. It's three episodes, and it's out in under 24 hours.

Read more

Remedy has cancelled its premium co-op multiplayer game, Codename Kestrel.

The project - which started life as codename Vanguard, before it was rebooted last year - was being developed by the Alan Wake and Control studio, with Tencent set to handle the publishing side of things.

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Remedy has cancelled its premium co-op multiplayer game, Codename Kestrel.

The project - which started life as codename Vanguard, before it was rebooted last year - was being developed by the Alan Wake and Control studio, with Tencent set to handle the publishing side of things.

Read more

Remedy has cancelled its premium co-op multiplayer game, Codename Kestrel.

The project - which started life as codename Vanguard, before it was rebooted last year - was being developed by the Alan Wake and Control studio, with Tencent set to handle the publishing side of things.

Read more

Remedy has shared an update on a number of its upcoming projects, including its Control multiplayer game and the Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes.

In a recent report, the studio said its forthcoming co-op multiplayer game set in the Control universe had entered full production. This means Codename Condor, as it is currently known, has "reached the final development stages before the game is launched".

The developer said internal playtests for the upcoming release have shown its game has "a unique Remedy angle" for the genre, with a core loop it described as "engaging".

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Hra Alan Wake 2 se po svém loňském uvedení na trh dočkala širokého uznání kritiky a od začátku února se jí celosvětově prodalo přes 1,3 milionu kusů, čímž se stala dosud nejrychleji prodávanou hrou společnosti Remedy Entertainment. I přes solidní start se však zatím neprodalo tolik, aby hra začala generovat zisk.

Ve své nedávno zveřejněné čtvrtletní zprávě společnost Remedy odhalila, že Alan Wake 2 stále ještě plně nevrátil náklady na vývoj a marketing, což také znamená, že „ještě nevytvořil příjmy z licenčních poplatků“. Podle vývojářů se však survival hororovému titulu vrátila „značná“ část výše zmíněných nákladů a že jeho prodeje „pokračují s vysokou průměrnou cenou“. Mezitím také pokračují práce na chystaných placených rozšířeních hry.

Alan Wake 2 je k dispozici na PS5, Xboxu řady X/S a PC. Někdy na jaře letošního roku do ní bude přidán také fotografický režim s bezplatnou aktualizací. Společnost Remedy Entertainment rovněž uvedla, že hodlá „rozvíjet a rozšiřovat“ obě série Control i Alan Wake a že chce pro obě hry „pravidelnější kadenci pokračování“.

Článek Náklady na vývoj a marketing hry Alan Wake 2 se zatím nevrátily se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.

As if you needed more proof that Baldur's Gate 3 is, in fact, a pretty damn fine video game, Larian’s D&D RPG swept through the video game BAFTA awards yesterday, picking up five of the British entertainment org’s top trophies. Even more impressively - after all, Baldur’s Gate 3 winning a shedload of awards is old hat by now - its latest Best Game triumph means that the sprawling RPG-slash-fanfic machine is now the first video game to win all five of the industry’s major Game of the Year awards.

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Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 leads the 2024 BAFTA Games Awards with 10 nominations, including Best Game, as it celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

BAFTA today released the shortlist of nominees for this year's awards, with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 receiving nine nominations, Alan Wake 2 receiving eight nominations, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor both receiving six.

The coveted Best Game will be awarded to either Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Dave the Diver, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, or Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

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Mary Kenney, associate narrative director at Insomniac Games, has discussed the current online discussion surrounding narrative development and consultancy firm Sweet Baby Inc.

To recap, Sweet Baby Inc. recently became the target of a group which claimed the company was forcing studios it worked with to increase diversity within its games, and accused it of pushing a "woke agenda" into the industry. Following a report into the claims by Kotaku, a number of game developers have spoken up to clear up misconceptions about what companies like Sweet Baby Inc. actually do.

Kenney, who has written for games including Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Telltale's The Walking Dead and the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine, posted a thread on X yesterday. "Some of you don't seem to understand how narrative consulting on games works," she began, "but don't worry: I do!"

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Alan Wake 2 was one of the most visually stunning games of 2023 - but also one of the most demanding for older hardware. Owing to its use of DX12 Ultimate mesh shaders, the game could run on older hardware but often delivered an unplayable experience, especially on Nvidia's GTX 10-series GPUs built on the Pascal architecture. This is an issue because so many of them are still in use: around nine percent of the Steam Hardware Survey's GPUs are 10-series cards. Last week, Remedy approached us with the chance to preview a PC patch going live on March 6th, which radically improves matters for Pascal users. At the same time, it's a golden opportunity for us to revisit Remedy's other work on the game since launch.

Nvidia's GTX 1060 remains one of the oldest and popular GPUs still in use, so it's a good initial focus for this piece. Its lack of mesh shader support is its undoing in Alan Wake 2. Mesh shaders give developers greater control over how much geometry is rendered on screen at any given moment, potentially allowing for much greater level of detail. Alan Wake 2 is a mesh shading showcase, with some incredible, highly detailed assets that look great viewed from far away or in extreme close-up.

The game does function on GPUs that don't support mesh shaders, but poor performance and visual errors are the problem: the GTX 1060 at 1080p on FSR 2 quality mode, married up with PS5's performance mode quality presets delivers a game typically running under 60fps, more usually hitting circa 15fps. Game frame-rate is so low, even game speed and audio playback are compromised.

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Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has announced it's acquired the full rights to its Control series from publisher 505 Games for €17m.

As detailed in an investor announcement on Remedy's website, the rights acquisition - which includes those for publishing, distribution, and marketing - cover the full Control franchise, including the supernatural third-person shooter's 2019 debut game, the upcoming Control 2 and multiplayer spin-off codenamed Condor, and all future titles in the series.

Remedy's publishing agreement with 505 Games for Control 2 and Condor terminates immediately, and 505 will continue to serve as the publisher of Control until 31st December this year, when the transition period ends.

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Alan Wake 2 is developer Remedy's fastest-selling game to date, but the studio is still to recuperate the project's development and marketing costs.

In its latest financial report, Remedy said Alan Wake 2 had now sold 1.3m units, with 1m of those occurring by the end of last year. This equates to 50 percent more copies and over three times more digital copies of Alan Wake 2 sold in the game's first two months than its previous release Control managed in its first four months (though it's worth noting Alan Wake 2 was a digital-only release).

Control has since gone on to sell over 4m units, and Remedy said it expected a similar trend with Alan Wake 2, as "a great game can generate excellent long tail sales". But, of course, games lose value over time - so copies sold after prices drop generate less revenue than at launch.

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Alan Wake 2 is developer Remedy's fastest-selling game to date, but the studio is still to recuperate the project's development and marketing costs.

In its latest financial report, Remedy said Alan Wake 2 had now sold 1.3m units, with 1m of those occurring by the end of last year. This equates to 50 percent more copies and over three times more digital copies of Alan Wake 2 sold in the game's first two months than its previous release Control managed in its first four months (though it's worth noting Alan Wake 2 was a digital-only release).

Control has since gone on to sell over 4m units, and Remedy said it expected a similar trend with Alan Wake 2, as "a great game can generate excellent long tail sales". But, of course, games lose value over time - so copies sold after prices drop generate less revenue than at launch.

Read more

Alan Wake 2, last year’s best horror game, best game overall or best-game-featuring-an-unexpected-but-extremely-welcome-musical-dance-number depending on who you ask, has shifted over a million copies. Musical dance numbers don’t come cheap, though, so it’s still yet to turn a profit - despite outpacing the momentum of any of Remedy’s previous games, including Control.

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