Since the gimmick Twitter account blew up in 2019, game developers have been scrambling to get a little free publicity by allowing players to pet all manner of animals in their games. From 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2 to Hades, to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blair Witch, devs have gone out of their way🌊 in recent years to let players pet a Noah’s ark menagerie.
So, it isn't surprising that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alan Wake 2 includes some nods to the meme (and, as such, has been on Can You Pet The Dog? since release). It has an actual dog you can pet, though the circumstances surrounding that interaction are stranger and funnier than they are in most games that make concessions to the meme (SPOILER ALERT: Mayor Setter, who you see campaign signs for throughout the game, is actually a dog). But, the more common occurrence finds co-protagonist Saga Anderson finding deer heads mounted to various walls around Bright Falls and Watery and petting them. As she does, she'll say something compassionate like, "Rest easy buddy," or "I feel bad for these guys," or "such a shame."
This small interaction manages to encapsulate Alan Wake 2's whole deal. On an obvious level, this game takes place in rural towns in the Pacific Northwest, and deer heads are an aesthetic match for the wood-paneling and log cabin decor.
But, it goes a bit deeper. This is a game that takes a form that players are comfortable with — it's a cinematic triple-A narrative game; it's survival horror in the mold of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil 4; it's a third-person shooter — then loads that familiar structure with big ideas and off-kilter storytelling techniques. It's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:not unlike Twin Peaks which, in its original ru♐n on ABC, used the spoonful of serialized mur𝔉der mystery sugar to get a broad audience to take their Lynchian medicine.
That iconic series is an obvious influence on both Alan Wake games (in so many ways it would take an entire other article to explore the connections with any depth). But, one of the beefiest pieces of connective tissue is in Alan Wake 2's characterization of Saga. The interactions with the deer heads help paint Saga as the game's Agent Cooper, Twin Peaks' quirky FBI agent played by Kyle MacLachlan. Both are emotionally intelligent FBI agents with access to realms beyond the physical world — in Cooper's case, The Black Lodge; in Saga's case, her Mind Place and the Overlaps. The connection to the deer heads speaks to Saga's empathy, but also to a connection to something beyond this world. The deer, which retain their appearance while changing fundamentally in death, are not unlike the Taken that Alan and Saga confront across the game's twin campaigns.
Alan Wake 2 even has a Cooper working at the Bri𒁏ght Falls Sheriff’s Station. James, not Dale, but still.
Remedy used the viral challenge to include something cute and cuddly as a means to further characterize their protagonist. When Saga pets a taxidermied deer, I see Remed🌱y subverting expectations by including some♑thing that is expected in triple-A games at this point, but using that contrivance as an opportunity to Trojan horse its own meaning into its world.
A📖lan Wake 2🥃 Is Better At Getting You To Read Lore Than Any Game I’ve Played
Saga's Case Board is a major iಌnnnovation for Remedy's style o🅰f lore-heavy action games.
