Last year, Remedy Entertainment brought to light Alan Wake 2, the long-awaited sequel to the 2010 action-horror game. And it was just as weird and wild as folks expected, with Alan Wake trying to find a way out of the Dark Place while an FBI agent investigated a cult. Now, those who opted for the Deluxe Edition have access to Night Springs, the first of two planned DLCs for the game.
And if you thought Alan Wake 2 was weird and wacky? Tune in for some super surreal shenanigans in…. Night Springs.
Game Name: Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC
Platforms: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, PC
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: Epic Games Publishing
Release Date: June 8, 2024
Price: $19.99 (deluxe edition upgrade), $79.99 (base game and expansion pass)
Night Springs: The Return
If you played the first two Alan Wake games, you might have wondered what the sequel did with the Night Springs segments—clips of a Twilight Zone-like TV show that players would encounter. Well, Alan Wake 2 didn’t forget about them. Each of the three Night Springs chapters plays like an episode of the program “written” by Wake himself.
In each of these meta-narratives, players take on the role of a character in this TV world resembling one from Wake’s world. The idea is that Wake is trying to escape the Dark Place by writing episodes of Night Springs. Mind-bending enough for you? Don’t worry, the chapters themselves work as standalone stories. This context is just in case you wonder why seemingly familiar faces pop up in bizarre circumstances.
Frenetic Fandom
The first Night Springs chapter places players into the pastel pink uniform of The Waitress. Entitled “Number One Fan,” this segment sees the waitress, who resembles Rose Marigold, trying to save The Writer from his evil twin brother, The Bad Boy.
If the description alone didn’t clue you in, this segment is the most campy of Night Springs’ chapters—and also its most fun. It begins with The Waitress serving customers at Nite’s Diner, a pink-themed version of the base-game’s Oh Deer Diner. With some light role-playing, players can also opt to dispense “great advice.” It doesn’t affect much, but it’s a joy to hear the wacky writing. This merely sets the tone for a talking fish to tell The Waitress she needs to grab a shotgun and save her beloved writer.
The rest of this segment is delightfully gleeful. Confronting the Bad Boy, players can continue to choose outrageous dialogue options. My personal favorite was the reaction the Bad Boy had to the announcement that I had a shotgun and planned to use it. And use it I did. The enemies in “Number One Fan” don’t have shadows around them, so you can get to blasting without worrying about dodgy flashlight mechanics. This makes the chapter fast-paced and frenetic, aided by bountiful ammo and the option for fully-automatic shotgun action.
Coffee Control
The second Night Springs chapter, “North Star,” trades the frantic shotgun action of its predecessor for more survival horror. This time around, The Sibling, who resembles Control‘s Jesse Faden, searches for her brother. For some reason, he’s trapped in Coffee World.
Ironically, despite using a protagonist from another Remedy game—sorry, one that looks like her—”North Star” has the most classic Alan Wake gameplay. Not-Jesse uses a flashlight to dispel shadows from enemies before downing them with a gun. But overall this chapter is less combat-heavy than the previous one, with much of the gameplay revolving around solving puzzles.
For those looking for a solid horror experience, this chapter of Night Springs leans into that route. Set during the night, Coffee World is suitably eerie with its neon lights and whispering shadows. Nothing truly terrifying happens, but it’s as creepy as a chapter about a coffee-worshipping cult can get.
Meta Multiverse
If the first chapter of Night Springs leans into the campiness of Alan Wake, and the second the creepiness, then the third gets into the meta-ness. This third and final chapter, “Time Breaker” focuses on an actor who stumbles upon the multiverse. It bears a lot of resemblance to the plot of Everything Everywhere All at Once, but with some flair from Remedy’s own Quantum Break.
Naturally, the hero of “Time Breaker” bears resemblance to—wait for it—Tim Breaker, the sheriff of Bright Falls. A bait and switch reveals that he’s recording scenes for a game directed by none other than Sam Lake himself. Remedy and the popular game director get to poke fun at themselves here. They also get to dabble in all kinds of game genres, as the hero traverses worlds—and game design styles—in a quest to prevent the Master of Many Worlds from killing parallel versions of him.
Generally, the gameplay here involves finding a television in each reality and activating it to switch to another reality. The shadow-dispelling and gun-toting combat returns, but not always in the three-dimensional way you expect it. I did find the genre-switching to be a little gimmicky here in terms of the gameplay, but stylistically it’s a lot of fun.
Take a Trip to Night Springs
Overall, Night Springs is a short but sweet journey into the weirder aspects of Alan Wake. Emphasis on the short, as each chapter takes less than an hour to finish. So in total, the Night Springs DLC takes about two to three hours to finish.
That said, it also feels like a kind of “greatest hits” for Alan Wake 2. While the excellent base game suffered from some bloat, and could be hit or miss in certain sections, Night Springs feels really tight and well-paced. Nothing overstays its welcome, but perhaps that’s just what it means to journey to…. Night Springs.
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Summary
Night Springs is the rare DLC that both retains a bit of everything from its base game and improves upon it. Alan Wake 2 already has a lot going for it, but its first DLC has its characteristic cheesiness, creepiness, and cosmic-ness across three chapters. It runs a bit short, but it’s a great supernatural sampler of Alan Wake at its best.
Pros
- Some of Remedy’s funniest writing yet.
- Some of Remedy’s best combat yet.
- Some of Remedy’s weirdest stories yet.
Cons
- Some simplistic gameplay, though still fun.
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Alan Wake 2 Night Springs Review
