Alan Wake 2 Game Review – A very personal counterproposal to the hype train, where only the benchmarks are objective because they have to be

It’s been a long time coming, but after a whole decade, Alan Wake has finally passed the torch to a worthy successor, since the remake doesn’t really cut the mustard. And now, drum roll please, he’s back in the saddle! Every newsroom is over the moon and singing the game’s praises. But to steer clear of the Alan Wake 2 hype train, I decided to take it for a spin and play for a few hours without any benchmarks in mind, just like any Joe Blow off the street, before putting pen to paper.

Today’s article is admittedly very subjective. But I still, and fully intentionally, want to publish an alternative to the unrestricted hymns of praise, which is anything but a bad review, but also takes a cue from the broad mass of those who can’t afford a 1500-euro graphics card. The benchmark for all the newly released games and DLCs is damn high nowadays, making one naturally picky. Still, not everything that glitters is gold; one has to be that honest. I write this page from my very personal perspective, which can never match that of all readers. That’s just how it is.

I need to take a step back not only to avoid being dazzled by the occasionally (but not always) breathtaking graphics, but also to see if there’s more than just pretty pixels in the ray tracing craze of the green path tracer. And what a surprise, Alan Wake 2 presents itself as the masterpiece the gaming world may not deserve but apparently desperately needs. Or at least that’s the message Remedy Entertainment and Epic Games Publishing as an exclusive platform want to sell us. In Alan Wake 2, Remedy – how could it be otherwise – relies on the Northlight engine, which they’ve of course developed further since Control. The result? Alan Wake 2 sometimes looks almost like Control, which is meant positively, and it sounds and feels that way too! Especially the lighting stands out – almost as if you were trying to find your way through the fog with a tiny flashlight.

The plot? Well, 13 years after Alan Wake disappeared in the picturesque town of Bright Falls, he finds himself in an alternative dimension. His ingenious way out? A horror novel in which he invents an FBI agent named Saga Anderson. Yes, it sounds as absurd as it seems. Alan Wake, the author, writing himself out of his captivity. A true stroke of narrative genius and quite crazy to boot! The tough Saga Anderson, an FBI agent who of course meets all the clichés of a modern heroine, is initially sent to town to investigate a series of ritualistic murders, while the elderly colleague and the eponymous sleazy serial detective become statistical sidekicks. Of course, the protagonists switch later, and you run around the terrain as Allan Wake. Those prone to a bit of schizophrenia will love this.

And of course, she quickly finds herself in a supernatural horror story written by Wake. Because that’s obviously the most logical way to tell a story quite illogically.

The game pulls you into the dark depths of the narrative, only to then leave you questioning in a sea of confusion and tedious tasks. But don’t worry, there’s also Anderson’s “Mind Palace”. A place where players can collect clues and avoid Wake’s endless monologues. A real step forward compared to the first game, but just as boring over time. But the real highlight of Alan Wake 2 is not the chaotic plot or the complex characters. It’s the game’s inexplicable hardware hunger. It demands the latest and best graphics cards, only to essentially offer us the same gaming experience as the first game. But what the heck, at least there are now real-time scenes with real actors in a late-night talk show. A must for every gaming enthusiast.

Alan Wake 2 is a game that somehow tries to be everything at once: a survival horror game, a detective game, and an interactive film. It’s a brave attempt, but whether it’s successful really depends on the eye of the beholder and also a bit on your own hardware. For me, it was a roller coaster of emotions, from confusion to amusement to pure frustration about the pointless hardware hunger and the constant look at the temperatures of the 12VHPWR adapter. But who knows, maybe that’s exactly what the developers intended: Alan Wake 2, the game that decided to follow in the footsteps of Crysis and ask, “But can it run Alan Wake 2 and will the plug hold up?”

The PC system requirements for Alan Wake 2 caused a stir last week. Why? Because the game exclusively requires a GPU with mesh shader support. This means that graphics cards like the GeForce GTX 10 series and the Radeon RX 5000 series are practically antique and worthless for this game. Yes, you heard right: Your beloved GTX 1080, which you bought a few years ago, is now definitely a relic of a bygone era, at least as far as this game is concerned. But that doesn’t help against occasional clipping errors either…

When you peek under the hood of Alan Wake 2’s official PC requirements, you’ll find that the bare minimum GPU for this game is the GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600. And even if you tick those boxes, you might just be scraping the bottom of the barrel with a dazzling 1080p at 30fps. But hold onto your hats, it gets even juicier! It seems like the game might automatically turn on the DLSS or FSR2 Quality Mode Upscaling. Whether these upscalers are a necessary evil to get a smooth sailing performance is in the hands of the almighty FPS deity and, of course, the size of your wallet. On the other hand, if you’re betting on a Radeon and crave that Raytracing experience (without it, it’s like a party without music), you might find yourself barking up the wrong tree and ending up with a bloody nose.

One of the main culprits why Alan Wake 2 only backs newer GPUs is that it rides on a graphics engine demanding mesh shaders. This technology isn’t exactly fresh out of the oven; it was rolled out back in early 2020 with DirectX 12 Ultimate. So it’s quite the head-scratcher that it took this long for a game to hit the shelves with mesh shaders as a non-negotiable hardware stipulation. And if you thought that was the whole nine yards, you haven’t laid eyes on the Nvidia-hyped path tracing support. No wonder this game will be the apple of the latest NVIDIA hardware’s eye. After all, it’s the first kid on the block to offer path tracing support right out of the gate. While Battlefield V was NVIDIA’s reflection slayer, Alan Wake is now the hardware-crushing enlightenment ordeal. It’s like dying in style, but in slow motion. For those who don’t want to be left in the dark (literally), they might need a dose of Jensen’s magic sauce.

Alan Wake 2 isn’t just a game, no siree, it’s also a 49-euro golden ticket to your hardware roller coaster. It pops the million-dollar question right off the bat: “Is your GPU future-proof?” And if the answer’s “No dice,” then maybe it’s high time to mull over a new investment. Or one could just sit tight and wait for the hardware specs of Alan Wake 3 to drop. Who knows, by then we might need a quantum computer GPU? With that in mind, one might turn a blind eye to the oddly spaced and somewhat illogical save points that, true to Remedy’s style, keep you glued to the screen without a moment’s respite. Even when you hit a chapter break, it often doesn’t save your bacon, so you’re left backpedaling by minutes if dinner’s calling.

But hold your horses, don’t be too quick to judge! Alan Wake 2 has its shining moments. Sometimes though, you might feel like you’re watching a puppet show, especially when it comes to facial animations. Other games have raised the bar on that front. And yes, it’s a dark game, but at times it feels like someone just forgot to pay the electric bill. NPCs chowing down emotionlessly in the shadows of a diner or bodies being examined under a dim light bulb – talk about realism! The LOD also seems to take a nap now and then. But warts and all, Alan Wake 2 is still easy on the eyes. It has its quirks, but it stands tall as one of the most visually striking games out there. Who needs smooth-as-silk perfection? That’s why I ran it through its paces and am still on the fence about playing it through. As I mentioned, I’m torn. Guess I’ll just play it by ear…