“like having to wear wet underwear to an 8 hour work shift."
PC | PS5 | XBOX SERIES
HOW I PLAYED: I purchased the Deluxe Edition Upgrade for my copy of Alan Wake II on the Epic Game Store on PC. I played on my R7 7800X3D, RTX 3080 gaming pc. I was able to play at 1440p Ultra Settings but with no path tracing and was hitting 60-70ish fps.
DLC / EXPANSION STORY
The Lake House is kind of a mini prequel to the events of the main game. You play as FBC Agent Kiran Estevez. Where you and your team of agents inspect the Lake House to get an idea of some paranormal activity happening at the lake.
The overall story is pretty "meh" overall, and it heavily relies on the player to read through many documents and watch mini exposition dump videos throughout the DLC. I love this type of story telling for additional lore elements, but I found The Lake House relied on this too heavily instead of having direct cutscenes or cinematics.
I definitely WALKED away from this feeling dissatisfied as the climax of the story barely connects to the main game.
Insert balloon-deflating sound here...
NEW MECHANICS
There are none!
You could technically include all the "accessibility" options that were added, but the base game received this as a patch as well, so it is not independent of the DLC.
NEW ENVIRONMENTS
The Lake House is technically a new location, but it is in the same green Pacific Northwest fauna as the base game. So, these assets are clearly reused, just in different placements. The House itself is made up of the same usual assets as one of the offices in Control, and it boils down to five or so floors of different dark office hallways with some crazy-looking paint.
Nothing that really sets it apart from the base game. Pretty disappointing for a year's worth of work IMO.
NEW CHARACTERS
Agent Kiran Estevez was introduced in the base game and has lore in Control, and the characters you encounter in The Lake House are reused NPCs from the base game. The main antagonist in the DLC is never really fleshed out and the final fight is against a basic NPC that no one cares about.
Again... a very big letdown.
QoL IMPROVEMENTS
Like I mentioned previously Remedy has added some toggles in the settings to make the game easier. Adding things like Infinite Ammo and Infinite Health. But nothing else really has changed from the base game.
NEW ENEMIES / BOSSES
There is 1 new enemy type in The Lake House, which you cannot kill with a normal flashlight and weapons. You have to use a NEW weapon specifically for this enemy. There is only 1 new boss which I mentioned earlier is a basic NPC with a boss healthbar... VERY BIG LETDOWN!
NEW ITEMS / WEAPONS
There is a new weapon, but no new items. With a game as basic as Alan Wake II you would think we could get some more weapon designs or types since this is basically a watered-down RE2 Remake style game. But NO... just the 1 new weapon.
Brutal...
REPLAYABILITY
This DLC only took me 1 hour and 38 minutes to complete. And although the runtime is short, I have ZERO desire to ever play through this DLC again.
Kinda like I have 0 desire to ever play God Of War Ragnarok ever again.... 👀
INTEGRATION WITH BASE GAME
It is a sudo prequel as the events take place before the base game, and are what connect Agent Kiran Estevez to the main game. But I felt like the connection was super weaaaak. And you could literally go without this storyline and lose no value in the already soft main game experience.
PERFORMANCE / STABILITY
Performance was good? Same as the base game for me on my gaming PC. I think the game still struggles on consoles. But I hear the new PS5 Pro gets some bare minimum Ray Tracing features now at 30fps.
So I guess that's great?
OVERALL — 26/50
Alan Wake II: The Lake House DLC is like having to wear wet underwear to an 8-hour work shift. It barely constitutes a game and is more of a hallway walking simulator with the occasional jump scare. I will admit there were moments where I thought I 💩'd my pants! But the overall experience was very paltry and left me feeling like I wasted my time. I think it was a HUGE miss on Remedy's part not to simultaneously release this game on Steam as it is STILL locked to Epic Game Store and as of this writing (Nov 10th, 2024), the game has not generated enough revenue to even cover development and marketing costs... OUCH. Remedy is IN THE RED with Alan Wake II and I am seeing RED for how disappointed I am with this game and its DLCs.
TLDR: 26/50 (FAIR) Alan Wake II: The Lake House DLC feels like a missed opportunity with limited new content and a weak story that leans too heavily on reading documents for lore rather than providing engaging cinematics. The "new" environment and characters recycle assets from the main game, while new gameplay mechanics and enemies are sparse. With a short playtime of under two hours, minimal replay value, and barely any link to the base game, it leaves much to be desired. Remedy’s decision to keep it exclusive to the Epic Games Store only adds to the frustration. Overall, the experience is disappointing and lacks the depth fans hoped for.
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