3.5/5 ★ – THRILLSON's review of Alan Wake II: Night Springs.

This collection of 3 mini stories is cute, and scratches a bit of the itch I was feeling in between DLC releases. It’s maybe 30-45 minutes per episode, though I heard there was originally going to be 5 episodes. 1 featuring Alex Casey, ans another Kiran the FBC agent. Unfortunately James McCaffery passed away. So Casey’s story was scraped, and Kirans was turned into the larger Lake house expansion. Unfortunately it is not possible to buy these expansions individually, rather the player is forced to buy or upgrade to the special edition of the game. Despite having record sales for Remedy, AWII has not recouped its development costs. I have a feeling this is may be influencing Remedy’s pricing strategy. Regardless, I got AWII on a Black Friday sale, and upgraded on another sale, so I don’t feel I overpaid. Night Springs is presented as a collection of 3 Episodes from the tv show “Night Springs” an in universe pastiche of the real life show “the Twilight Zone”. Night Springs also happens to be the town the show is set, though it is depicted as just a renamed Bright Falls. 3 third episode is set in multiple locations. These are non-canon “what if” scenarios in a similar vain to Resident Evil 2 Remakes’ “the Ghost Survivors”. AWII continues to borrow a lot from Capcom I guess. I like to think that Alan needed a break from writing “Return” and decided to write these short stories for fun. Iwill break each episode’s review down separately. Episode 1 is about Rose, Alans obsessive Fan. This one is pure fiction, and told as if Rose was writing the story. It’s goofy and light hearted, and probably the shortest. There are no puzzles, instead Rose is give an automatic shotgun with practically unlimited ammunition, and blasts away enemies while trying to save Alan. It’s probably the shortest of the three stories, but it’s funny and a nice break from the otherwise Macabre story. Episode 2 sees us playing as Jesse Faden before she discovers the FBC. She’s looking for her lost brother, and finds herself lost in coffee world. This one took a bit longer, and the player has a few puzzles to solve with some back tracking, but nothing too difficult. There is no difficulty selection here either, and she has an automatic Glock with unlimited ammunition too, though the enemy count is so low they are a non factor. I think, like Roses episode, this is totally non-canon, and you will see what I mean when you see the ending. I enjoyed it more than Episode 1 because it required some brain power, but it was still pretty short and uninvolved. But I like Jesse as a character, and it is nice to see her in a different role and environment. Episode 3 has us in the shoes (boots?) of Shawn Ashmore, the actor who plays Tim Breaker. He works for a game studio headed by Sam Lake, known as Poison Pill. Harr harr. This episode is the longest, taking about an hour to finish. Shawn is given a new tool that lets him shift realities, and the ending loops back to the NG+ “Final Draft” ending of the main AWII experience, I would consider this half-canon, as it explains why Breaker seems to be in different places at the same time, but it is equally as silly as the other two episodes. There are a couple mechanics introduced here, but there is very little combat, and the ending kind of drags on. I’m also not a big fan of multiverse stories as once you open the multiverse it is impossible to close, and they often reduce down to a plot crutch anytime the writers want to retcon. Sam Lake might be the last great director, and I think this was an outlet for all his nutty ideas that didn’t fit in the main story. It was fun to push the limits of the combat, especially considering that the Alan Wake 1 was not survival horror and had many large combat sections. My only other Major complaint was the lack of Ahti in any of these stories. Or at least in episode 3. I think he would have served as a good link to the “real” world, but I think Lake wanted to avoid legitimizing these stories so his absence solidifies the notion of them being non-canon.