Summary
Now officially confirmed to be Remedy Entertainment’s fastest-selling game ever, it seems fair to say thatAlan Wake 2has been rather successful, maybe more so than Remedy ever thought possible. While it’s not raking inGTA Onlinemoney,Alan Wake 2’s 1.3 million sold copiesis still incredibly impressive and puts Remedy in a very nice spot for its future.
Announced a little ahead of its release,Alan Wake 2will receive two story DLCs in 2024. Titled “Night Springs” and “Lake House,” not much is known about these twoAlan Wake 2DLCs, though their titles do suggest a general direction for each expansion’s story based on the events ofAlan Wake 2’s narrative. Specifically, anyone who’s played throughAlan Wake 2will know that the Lake House is the location of the Federal Bureau of Control’s outpost near Cauldron Lake, which is name-dropped several times duringAlan Wake 2’s main story. With this in mind, it seems likely thatAlan Wake 2’s Lake House DLC will revolve around the FBC in a major capacity, which could end up repeating some recent Remedy DLC history.
Alan Wake 2’s Lake House DLC Could Have The Same Purpose As Control’s AWE DLC
Alan Wake 2 Was Set Up In Control’s AWE DLC
Released in August 2020,Control’s AWE DLC acts as a substantial story expansion for the base game, a refresher of the events of the originalAlan Wake, and a direct set-up for the events ofAlan Wake 2, a total of three years before its eventual release. With Jesse Faden now acting as thenew Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, she’s tasked with reclaiming a long-abandoned area of the Oldest House, the Investigations Sector, which is said to be infested with an unknown threat.
Closed off from the rest of the Oldest House, the Investigations Sector acts as a gateway between FBC headquarters and a number of Altered World Events, often shortened to AWEs. Players soon discover that one of these AWEs comes from the town of Bright Falls, the primary setting of theAlan Wakeseries and the site of a paranatural Threshold that allowsthe Dark Presenceto enter reality. Over the course ofControl’s AWE DLC, players will face off against the Dark Presence, briefly visit Bright Falls, and see visions of Alan Wake himself.
DuringControl’s AWE DLC, Jesse Faden sees visions of Alan Wake whenever she’s in the Oceanview Motel and walks up to a door marked with a mysterious spiral symbol. This symbol goes on to have an incredibly important meaning inAlan Wake 2.
While the AWE DLC was still very much centered aroundControland its base game characters and mechanics, it still did a good job of setting upAlan Wake 2, confirming that the writer is still alive and trapped in the Dark Place and hinting atthe FBC’s future involvement in the Remedy Connected Universe. The AWE DLC even ends with Jesse receiving an incident report from Bright Falls dated several years in the future, teeing upAlan Wake 2directly.
Alan Wake 2’s Lake House DLC Could Set Up Control 2
Now, it seems like the time has come forAlan Wake 2to return the favor. Though it’s still in its very early proof-of-concept stages of development,Control 2is on its way, andAlan Wake 2’s Lake House DLC is the perfect place to tease some upcoming story or character beats. A great way to do this would be having Jesse Faden play a major role in the DLC, either as the DLC’s main playable character or as a cameo on a similar level to Alan Wake inControl’s AWE DLC.
However, it should be noted that whileAlan Wake 2’s Lake House DLChas the perfect opportunity to teaseControl 2, Remedy’s Sam Lake has stated that the DLC won’t set up the sequel directly, saying that the Lake House is “not looking to repeat [AWE’s setup ofAlan Wake 2] exactly”. But at the same time, Lake did state that The Lake House will focus on the FBC, and that “there will be hints about things to come in the Control sequel.”
Alan Wake 2
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A string of ritualistic murders threatens Bright Falls, a small-town community surrounded by Pacific Northwest wilderness. Saga Anderson, an accomplished FBI agent with a reputation for solving impossible cases arrives to investigate the murders. Anderson’s case spirals into a nightmare when she discovers pages of a horror story that starts to come true around her.Alan Wake, a lost writer trapped in a nightmare beyond our world, writes a dark story in an attempt to shape the reality around him and escape his prison. With a dark horror hunting him, Wake is trying to retain his sanity and beat the devil at his own game.Anderson and Wake are two heroes on two desperate journeys in two separate realities, connected at heart in ways neither of them can understand: reflecting each other, echoing each other, and affecting the worlds around them.Fueled by the horror story, supernatural darkness invades Bright Falls, corrupting the locals and threatening the loved ones of both Anderson and Wake. Light is their weapon—and their safe haven — against the darkness they face. Trapped in a sinister horror story where there are only victims and monsters, can they break out to be the heroes they need to be?
