When I played Control back in 2019, I (along with most people who played the game) was impressed by the quality of the world-building Remedy did to make the Oldest House a believably weird setting. There were the videos of Dr. Casper Darling, walking the player through various experiments he was undertaking as he went further and further down the rabbit hole. There were the bizarre puppet shows starring the unsettling Th𒆙reshold Kids. And, of course, there were reams of memos to find around the building, usually redacted to one degree or another, that discussed various Objects of Power and Altered World Events.
As I play through 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alan Wake 2 — a pse🌄udo-sequel to Control as much as it is a full-on sequel to the first Alan Wake — I’ve been thinking about all that world-building again. Namely, how, after a while, I ignored most of it in favor of sprinting and flying and shooting my way to the next objective. Control was such a compelling action game that I often preferred to knock papers into the air with the game’s impressive physics effects than read what was written on them. As good as the lore was, eventually I stopped wanting to take a break to read it.
In Alan Wake 2, I don’t have that problem. I'm nearly done with Remedy’s latest and I still have never been bothered by picking up a new sheet of paper to read. The game takes great pains to make it seem like everything you encounter may be important to the story’s overarching mystery.
Much of this comes do💟wn to the Case Board, the ever expanding record of evidence Saga is creating in her Mind Place. Pinning notes to the board helps her keep track of all of the narrative threads running alongside each other out there in the world of Bright Falls. The Case Board helps you keep track of the story, sure, but interacting with it is also mandatory. Often I’ve encountered a roadblock in the story and realized that I wasn’t able to progress because I hadn’t visited my Mind Place in a while, leaving key information off the board.
Failing to do so prevents Saga from making deductions which means she can’t take key actions. For example, I got stuck in the Valhalla Nursing Home for an inordinate amount of time, running up and down the stairs looking to see if I had missed something. I had, but it wasn’t in the house — it was in my mind. 🌳Once I went to Saga’s Mind Place and pinned some t🐻hings on the board, she realized she could talk to Rose the nurse and I got the story going again.
This encourages you to look at every scrap of paper you find while you’re exploring. It might just be a throwaway bit of lore, but it could also be crucial to making story progress. It feels a little bit like how every quest in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3 feels important, even if it isn’t. That game ties side quests into the overarching story so o💞ften that you start to expect every side quest will blossom into an important bit of narrative. Alan Wake 2 does for lore what BG3 does for side quests, making every memo as (potentially) important as a new weapon in an FPS. Remedy’s world-building has ဣalways been fantastic. Now, it’s essential.
Watching Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Made Me Fall🦋 In Love With Alan Wake 2
Knowing where the game draws its inspiration from only elevates my𓆏 experience of iܫt
