Why did Alan Wake 2 hold back?

I finished the game recently and have been thinking about it. After playing AW1 and AW2 back to back for the first time, I'm quite happy with the way the sequel turned out. It's everything the first game tried to be. The controls improved, the story improved, the acting and graphics improved. AW1 has its charm in some ways, but it does have a lot of problems. For one, I had to restart my game so many times because the game kept glitching. But despite all that, you could see the semblance of a good story in there. Remedy said that AW1 was like the rough draft to AW2, and it shows.

As soon as I started AW2, right from the menu screen you get the feeling that the overall vibe has changed. (It's a shame the menu theme is not on the soundtrack). I had read that this was truly a horror game, wheras the first was mostly action with a coat of horror paint. And the dread and anticipation is all there. I was walking through the woods holding my breath because you could feel something coming, even when you play as Saga who has the more action-heavy storyline.

But as I kept playing the game, switching between the two characters, I came to realize that something was missing. I had this feeling that in spite of the nature of the story, it wasn't doing enough to be horrifying. And yet, it was doing everything else right. The way it balances two stories and intertwines them felt so well put together. The discovery process for Saga, while sometimes overdrawn, felt like a good investigative process. For Alan, the writing different scenarios to a location and seeing it play out was not far off from writing your own story and getting inspiration from visiting new places.

This game cultivated a proper atmosphere for suspense and mystery so well, it left me wondering why was the horror aspect not on par. After 13 years, AW2 improved everything, but somehow the fear, the horror, was downplayed. I liked what they did with Alan facing shadows while Saga faces possessed people, but this is a long game, and after a while you realize that that's all you're going to get. It leaves you wanting for more. More monsters? Maybe, but not necessarily.

This is a story about a character stuck in a nightmare dimension while another character deals with the consequences of this. They could've gotten more creative with the creature designs beyond Benadryl Hat Men and old ladies going through mental health crises. The most extreme imagery in the game seems to be Nightingale's corpse and the burned people in the subway. That was quite shocking for the game, and even Alan comments on that. But besides that, we don't really see anything else. Bloody hallways and (beautiful) red lighting, but that's about it. It's almost as if the game was pulling back punches.

For a survival horror game, it extensively holds your hand. Before even starting, I could enable infinte ammo and make myself invulnerable, something you often have to earn in other games. Save points are beyond abundant, and so are safe lights and ammunition. I never really feared for my survival.

So why, then, was the game designed this way? My guess is that this is a €70 million game, and so with such high investment, the developers must make the game as accessible as they can to reach a broader audience. Horror games, like films, are often confined to smaller budget productions. Remedy is not known for making horror games, and with this being a sequel to a thirteen year old game, then it must've been risky to add too much disturbing imagery and mechanics that might put off people from playing. The game recently managed to recoup costs, so this strategy must've worked. I have read that many people did find the game quite scary, so perhaps it did just enough to reach that audience. Another possibility is that Sam Lake and co. maybe just aren't too into horror, and so instead they aimed for a good mystery game and painted it with an even better horror coat this time.

It reminds me of Inception. Great movie about dreams and how they affect people's perspective. And yet, when you watch Paprika, the movie that inspired it, and realize that this is a story about dreams, you start to see how toned down Inception turned out. Dreams can be simple. Dreams can also be massively psychedelic and surreal. Praprika manages to capture some of that oddity, while Inception barely touches on it. It looks quite "normal" and tame compared to the razzle dazzle of colors and psychedelia that is Paprika. The thing is that Inception is a $160 million dollar movie, whereas Paprika had merely a fraction of that budget. It would've been too risky for Inception to go into that direction instead. It's already too confusing as it is for many people! Make it more feverish and it could've turned out to be a box office disaster. It should be noted that Possessor, a horror film that's somewhat similar, had instead a budget much closer to Paprika's.

Does horror need gory scenes with rusty hallways and tentacle monsters with many eyes? No. Alan Wake does not need that to be scary. There are other forms of horror. I know Twin Peaks inspired the game, it's quite obvious. Take a look at Blue Velvet. The closet scene where Dennis Hopper's character does the whole "baby wants to fuck" is utterly horrifying. I sat there recoiling in my seat when I first saw that. Somehow, it managed to strike in me the same horror and shock as when I saw that awful skinning scene in Terrifier 2. Both scenes made me ask myself, "what the fuck am I watching?". Nothing transgressive like that ever happens in Alan Wake 2. Perhaps the closest we get to this is the idea that Saga's daughter has been "written off", and that Alan's wife ultimately died because he haunted her.

We get thrown into these nearly non-Euclidean loops around the woods and in buildings. You hold your breath expecting something to happen, but after walking for a while you realize that nothing really happens. Nobody's hunting you. No further dark revelations about the characters is made. Alan being Alice's ghost feels like it should've hit harder. The reveal that our hero from the first game is now the monster sort of gets scapegoated at times and handwaved. "That dang Scratch did it again". Alan, you're doing the whole writing. Saga reclaiming her life was well done, on the other hand. Her decision feels feels heavier.

While not the definitive meaning of the horror genre, Stephen King defines it as being made up of three parts: terror, horror, and disgust. It's the buildup, the event, and the aftermath. In AW2, we see a lot of buildup to something. It's terrifying as we wait in anticipation, and then we squirm past corpses and bloody trails in the aftermath of some event. This happens throughout the game, and after a while you get the feeling that there's hardly any payoff to that anticipation. There's hardly any "events", the second part. Something like the darkness chasing you in the hotel. It's like a sneeze that never happens. You just blow your nose and get the feeling to sneeze again. Terror is perhaps the best of the three. The tingling fear of what's behind the door. AW2 gets that part right. It, however, seems to deliberately leave off the rest of the equation.

None of this is a complaint. I'm quite happy with the game. Maybe I'm just a glutton hungering for more frightening content. If anything, my only real complaint is Cynthia's boss fight. That was quite sad. She was so afraid of the dark in the first game. As a gameplay mechanic, though, it's laughably bad. Somehow an old, crying lady flapping her arms at you takes half your health away. C'mon now. Her jumping out of the water like a shark did spook me, though.

I'm curious what you all think about the game's direction. Has there been an interview or commentary explaining the horror choices for the game?

PS. : I absolutely loved how much it showed off its True Detective influence. I loved Zane's film, Yötön Yö. Pure kino 🤌. I also really liked those moments where the characters would walk and the visuals would overlap with other locations. Very dreamy. I think it happened only twice (?). Wish we got more of that. The lighting reminded me of Mandy at times, just beautiful.