4.5/5 ★ – Cyberrax's review of Alan Wake II.

The story is phenomenally good. I think this might be my favourite Remedy game after or alongside Quantum Break now. Really impressed with all of it, how it all came together so neatly, how it came with twists and turns, and how it sets up an interesting third game, which I cannot wait for. The only issue I really had with this game was the few moments of unbelievably poor level design. Most of the time, it was good and solvable, but other times, you'd be running past things you already checked but because things are maybe too small or unclear, you have to turn to youtube frequently. I think a lot of the puzzles were the right sort of difficulty as I felt a sense of achievement without it feeling too challenging, but some of the time, there were those few moments where puzzles meant "look around for this" but the game lacked clear direction. It is unnecessary for games to not at least have the option to toggle waypoints. And that reminds me, while I had chosen the easiest mode, some fights (especially Cynthia) were still dreadfully difficult. What is the point in making an easy/story mode if it isn't easy? Some of us don't want to spend ages fighting a challenging psycho taken granny, we just want to experience the narrative. It baffles me that game developers force us to become so frustrated with their game, like do they not know we'll be tempted to stop playing? I think Alan Wake 2, despite some gameplay critiques, is a masterclass in terms of story and horror. Saga was my favourite character and I found her to be far more interesting than Wake. However, each character was written brilliantly and ultimately, I enjoyed this game a lot. One of the best of 2023.