Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC is coming June 8, and it offers something desperately missing from the core game
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Here’s a synopsis of each of the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC episodes, and then we’ll touch base with Remedy to get some exclusive details on the expansion.
Let’s get weird with it
Let’s start withTime Breaker, the episode that focuses on a ‘multiversal hero’ played by one Shawn Ashmore. I asked Alan Wake 2 game director Kyle Rowley how far Remedy can reasonably take its Quantum Break nods beforeMicrosoftstarts knowing at their door. “Erm, where’s legal?” he laughs, before giving some more detail on how Night Springs is being framed. “These aren’t the characters from the actual stories of Alan Wake and the other games that we’ve made. They’re Night Springs echoes of them, so there’s nothing directly connected to any of the stuff that we’ve done in previous games lore-wise or name-wise or anything like that.” Lead writer Clay Murphy adds: “These are characters inspired by the real people that Alan Wake has seen visions of in the Dark Place, a process we established in the main game.”
Okay, so we’re no closer to Quantum Break becoming a part of the wider Remedy Connected Universe. Nor are we any closer to seeing FBC Director Jesse Faden make second contact with Wake in the Dark Place – I wager we’ll have to wait for the second Alan Wake DLC (The Lake House) or Control 2 for that one. Still, Alan Wake 2: Night Springs will offer up the opportunity for more action-focused experiences, with these self-contained levels set across warped areas from the base game with a focus on letting those heavy combat systems shine.
“We have a lot of Night Spring twists on a lot of our mechanics,” says Rowley. That will come through in a variety of ways across the three episodes, but perhaps Number One Fan paints the most obvious example of a well-intentioned shift. “The core combat loop in the base game was very much a survival horror, more tactical with resource management. But in the episode you just saw, the mandate was: we don’t care about resources, let’s lower the health, and make this a power fantasy of the waitress who has the awesome weapons she needs to blast away and save her hero.”
“It’s actually been really refreshing for us, and a fun creative challenge,” says level designer Nathalie Jankie. “In the main game, we really lent into this feeling of vulnerability. But in Night Springs, it’s been fun to subvert a lot of those themes, and explore some of the other themes established in the main game – some of the silliness and the wackiness.”
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For me, that point is actually why I’m so drawn to the prospect of the Night Springs DLC. If you read my Alan Wake 2 review, you’ll know that I was pretty blown away by the core experience – the strength of its mechanical design, the immense visual fidelity, and the ambitious narrative framework which sought to blur multiple layers of reality. It was an incredible improvement over the original Alan Wake, although I did miss some of that game’s off-beat humor and style – the absence of Barry Wheeler in the sequel wasnotable.
While there’s no confirmation on whether the free-wheeling agent is returning here, the general shift towards something more absurdist is something I’m exceptionally excited to dive into. These episodes offer Remedy a chance to do what it does best: be creative, push boundaries, and produce moments of explosive action interspersed with ideas which twist the reality of worlds and characters we thought we once knew. “It’s been nice to be able to creatively stretch our legs,” says Murphy, “especially after making something for so many years that is quite dark, and it’s been fun to push tone in extreme directions and see what comes of it.”
Josh West is the Editor-in-Chief of GamesRadar+. He has over 15 years experience in online and print journalism, and holds a BA (Hons) in Journalism and Feature Writing. Prior to starting his current position, Josh has served as GR+’s Features Editor and Deputy Editor of games™ magazine, and has freelanced for numerous publications including 3D Artist, Edge magazine, iCreate, Metal Hammer, Play, Retro Gamer, and SFX. Additionally, he has appeared on the BBC and ITV to provide expert comment, written for Scholastic books, edited a book for Hachette, and worked as the Assistant Producer of the Future Games Show. In his spare time, Josh likes to play bass guitar and video games. Years ago, he was in a few movies and TV shows that you’ve definitely seen but will never be able to spot him in.
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