Alan Wake II Night Springs Review
Summary: Night Springs gives a fresh experience but not a good-quality one.
3.9
Fresh But Not Speical
The latest DLC of Alan Wake 2, Night Springs has a slow and not a good start, but it gets better with each episode. The DLC contains three episodes that let you play as familiar characters in different realities. In the lore of Alan Wake, Wake has written a couple of episodes for the Night Springs anthology series that aired in the Alan Wake universe, and now we get a taste of it.
The first episode is about Rose Marigold, the barista of Oh Deer Diner, who happens to be the most fanatic fan of Alan Wakes’ works. In this episode, we take control of her as she tries to save Alan Wake who is being attacked by his haters. Overall, the gameplay and fighting are solid, but the theme of the story is way off from Alan Wake’s universe.
The cute and colorful world of Rose does not match with what we have seen so far in Alan Wake games or any other Remedy game that we have experienced. For that particular reason, the Number One Fan is not something I expected and I couldn’t change my mind about it after finishing it. The storytelling and especially the tone of its narrative did not match with anything we’ve seen in Alan Wake’s universe.
It has a new and unique idea, but not everything new can be pushed into a piece of art. After finishing it, I really hoped the next two episodes would provide a far better experience and narrative than this. Thankfully, the DLC got better with each episode.
In the North Star episode, we take control of someone similar to Jesse Faden from Control. This episode felt much more like an Alan Wake DLC than the previous episode did. There were unique and interesting puzzles, a good mystery to unravel, and a familiarity with its world that matched the dark tone of Alan Wake. Yet, in terms of gameplay, it still felt shallow.
The design of the puzzles is good but they aren’t that powerful enough to make the whole episode a top experience. It definitely is a better experience than Number One Fan, but it still has a distance from what we expect from Remedy.
The last episode of the DLC, Time Breaker, was exactly what I wanted from an Alan Wake DLC. Starting off with the meta storytelling, the narrative got crazier and crazier. That is exactly what I wanted from an alternative experience set in the world of Alan Wake.
A kind of uniqueness and craziness that we could not see in the main game, but the small size of the expansion is the perfect place to deploy these crazy ideas. And not only in terms of storytelling, but gameplay and world-building-wise it brought something familiar but unique that matches the vibe of Alan Wake II.
Both Time Breaker and North Star episodes do something I wanted from the Remedy DLCs and that is to make the connection between Remedy games crazier. These DLCs are the greatest opportunity to create the space for fans to come up with crazy fan theories until we get to see the end of it.
Since Remedy games use meta-storytelling techniques, the crazier their DLC the more powerful and impactful their stories can be. That is the other reason I could not connect with the Number One Fan episode. It does not add anything to the overall quality of storytelling and world-building of what Remedy tries and wants to do.
Time Breaker on the other hand is the only episode with fresh ideas in gameplay as well. The amount of time the setting, art style, and even the genre of gameplay changed, was the main surprise for me. Just when you think it cannot get any crazier, it gets crazier. And that is why I admire Time Breaker more than other episodes.
Conclusion
The Night Springs DLC is a decent but flawed expansion. Among the three different episodes, only Time Breaker was truly a Remedy experience and others lacked the quality in terms of gameplay and world-building. It was a fresh experience but wasn’t appealing enough for me to go back to it again.
About the Author
S. Masoud Kazemi An admirer of art that doesn't stop talking about films and games.
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