Alan Wake had an issue. He’d been teased as being a giant a part of the ultimate DLC enlargement of Control, dubbed AWE, and with that got here expectations. Fans of Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 psychological horror/thriller shooter had been ready a couple of decade for the subsequent section of his story. Wake labored furiously to make himself a part of the AWE story, showing in twisted cutscenes that captured his fractured psychological state. But ultimately, it wasn’t sufficient. Though his writing had the ability to change the very nature of actuality, not even Wake may make AWE greater than an unsatisfying addition to each his story and that of the sport he’d invaded.Control’s AWE enlargement finally is an underwhelming addition and a skinny follow-up to the Remedy cult hit it is invoking. Especially following The Foundation, a DLC drop that added quite a lot of selection to Control with new powers and a brand new location that felt very totally different from all the things else within the recreation, AWE comes off as extra of a barely tweaked rehash of the vanilla Control. AWE tries to faucet into a few of Alan Wake’s spooky suspense underpinnings, and whereas it typically succeeds, it might’t fairly keep them for very lengthy.It’s a little bit of a whimper for a terrific recreation to exit on, as AWE feels extra like a teaser for one more recreation you will have to purchase at a later date, somewhat than a satisfying enlargement of (or conclusion to) what we have seen in Control thus far.AWE represents Remedy elevating Easter eggs present in Control and its different video games (particularly Quantum Break) to shared-universe territory. Alan Wake is a personality in Control’s universe, and what’s extra, he is now straight impacting on protagonist Jesse Faden’s story. A spectral Alan guides Jesse to the Investigations part of the Oldest House, the residing workplace constructing the place Control is about. The Investigations part was sealed two years earlier after an enormous horrific monster rampaged via it and killed an entire bunch of individuals. Wake’s messages ship Jesse to analyze, and unsealing the part offers the monster the chance to escape–so it turns into Jesse’s job to hunt it down and kill it earlier than it might get into the remainder of the Federal Bureau of Control and begin munching on the survivors.So most of AWE is about Jesse wandering via the Investigations part, looking the creature. The twist is that the monster is Emil Hartman, a personality from Alan Wake (the sport, not the man). The Darkness, the evil pressure in that recreation, has turned Hartman right into a monster, and the interference of Control’s Hiss has made him even worse. Merging the 2 video games lets Remedy add Alan Wake mechanics to Control’s fight to create a brand new wrinkle: Hartman is invincible at the hours of darkness however afraid of the sunshine.That creates a few of AWE’s finest moments, the place you pursue or are pursued by Hartman in heart-pounding, lethal interactions. Again and once more, you will face Hartman in conditions the place you both need to run from gentle supply to gentle supply to keep away from a distorted, 15-foot-tall, teleporting killing machine, or it’s important to flip switches and maneuver energy sources to blast that killing machine with gentle and drive it away. The whole DLC marketing campaign is a sequence of encounters with a creature that is genuinely scary, and in its coolest components, AWE faucets into Alan Wake’s horror and filters it via Control’s superpowered lens.It does not all the time work, although. All of those encounters with Hartman aren’t actually fights, since you’ll be able to’t harm Hartman whereas he is at the hours of darkness. They’re extra like a sequence of fast-paced puzzle encounters, and a few of them–like a chase the place it’s important to blow down partitions so as to attain the subsequent pool of sunshine earlier than you are snagged within the creature’s enormous, gnarled arms–are extra thrilling than others.The evil Darkness in AWE mirrors that of Alan Wake: In the 2010 recreation, standing in a pool of sunshine would heal you of wounds you acquired out within the black. In AWE, standing at the hours of darkness saps you of your capacity power, rapidly limiting the superpowers you should use, whereas getting below a lightweight restores them. That implies that while you’re sprinting from gentle to gentle, you are slowly dropping the flexibility to successfully dash from gentle to gentle.On paper, that feels like it could create quite a lot of rigidity, however in apply it simply provides a limitation to your fight capabilities that may compound frustration. Control already could be a slog at instances because of its well being system, which requires you to harm and kill enemies to revive your self. The recreation is constructed to present you powers like super-speedy dodging and telekinetic shields that will help you save your self while you get harm too badly. But combating enemies at the hours of darkness additionally robs you of your superpowers. It helps create conditions by which you are not solely struggling to maintain your well being up, but additionally scrambling to maneuver to or keep in areas that strengthen your powers. In just a few fights, like one the place you slowly dismantle your gentle sources so as to energy a a lot larger one, this rapidly places you into conditions the place in case you take an excessive amount of injury you’ve got just about received no probability to heal your self, and wish to start out over.The pendulum swings between enjoyable, tense, scary fights and irritating fights could be extra forgivable if AWE felt prefer it delivered on the promise of its title, although. In Control, AWEs are Altered World Events, conditions by which the supernatural bleeds into the actual world. Exploring the world the place the Bureau investigates these occasions feels prefer it ought to imply this DLC is overflowing with bizarre, ingenious stuff–but it is not. There are solely a small handful of side-quests and Control’s extra-cool altered objects to come across, they usually’re extraordinarily underwhelming, principally consisting of momentary busywork. One is a practice automobile the place it’s good to work together with objects in a sure order to piece collectively the story of the way it derailed, which reveals subsequent to nothing. The different is an encounter with a sentient NASA area swimsuit that you simply solely work together with via a door and by no means truly see in particular person. As a follow-up to encounters with objects like a sentient rubber ducky and a fridge that murders folks in the principle recreation, or a film digital camera that places you in a Hollywood-style chase scene in The Foundation DLC, these AWE concepts are fairly lackluster.The extra attention-grabbing half is all of the story AWE teases, though most of it presents cool potentialities for issues that do not truly seem within the recreation. Wake himself is round, and we get slightly information on what is going on on with him, which suggests there’s extra to search out. There are different threads with Alan Wake characters, together with his spouse, Alice. And we find out about a really probably cool side of the FBC’s mandate: coping with “paracriminals,” individuals who attempt to use supernatural Altered Items and Objects of Power for crimes, or who attempt to truly create Altered World Events. A recreation about coping with these folks sounds prefer it’d be fairly compelling, and AWE offers the sense that that may be the route Control goes, as a franchise, sooner or later.But for now, you are principally simply fixing puzzles in Investigations so you’ll be able to activate lights to chase Hartman. You proceed to struggle the Hiss, however even with the introduction of a brand new flying enemy, it is just about enterprise as standard. There are some new energy upgrades for Jesse’s arsenal–specifically, the flexibility to telekinetically throw three objects at a time as a substitute of one–and the brand new Surge grenade launcher gun, which fires sticky bombs you’ll be able to remotely detonate, provide you with alternatives to create new fight methods. They mix effectively with what’s already on provide in Control, however none provide ingenious new methods to handle fight conditions or exploration the way in which The Foundation’s additions do.AWE is the story of expectations not fairly assembly actuality. It’s thrilling to see Alan Wake turn out to be a full-fledged addition to the Control universe and to make amends for totally different points of Remedy’s rising universe. But this feels way more like a style of what would possibly are available future video games than a robust addition to what’s been in-built Control. AWE is a missed alternative for Remedy to actually embrace Control’s deep weirdness, and it is a missed alternative for it to actually broaden on the story of Alan Wake after a lot ready. It’s the unlucky facet impact of the concept of a shared universe–in teasing the subsequent installment within the rising story, AWE does not do a lot to serve the story it is already in.
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