Alan Wake 2’s The Lake House Expansion Is Its Swansong, And A Bridge To Control’s Sequel

Debuting immediately, Alan Wake 2’s second and ultimate growth, The Lake House, arrives nearly precisely one 12 months after the bottom sport arrived. After ready 13 years for the sequel, it feels too quickly to already say goodbye to this chapter of the Alan Wake saga. Fortunately, within the vast, bizarre world of the Treatment Related Universe, The Lake House is not a lot a conclusion as it’s a continuation. Simply because the studio used Control’s second growth to construct the runway for Alan Wake 2, The Lake House looks like an thrilling lead-in to Control’s introduced sequel, and maybe even to its multiplayer spin-off, FBC: Firebreak.

For many who already performed the bottom sport, The Lake House absolutely explores a thriller solely hinted at beforehand. A Federal Bureau of Management (FBC) outpost, The Lake House, has gone darkish, and Agent Kieran Estevez, launched throughout the primary story, is the responding agent and thus a playable character for the primary time. For many who completed Control’s second growth, AWE, the occasions of The Lake House had been hinted at within the ultimate scene of the DLC, when Jesse Faden notices a misery sign that an altered world occasion is ready to happen in Vivid Falls.

As Estevez, gamers will get a brand new perspective on the excessive strangeness of Treatment’s quilted story world. She’s no rookie, and the place others might cower on the sight of paranatural monsters oozing out of the partitions of The Lake House, Estevez is simply upset it would result in extra paperwork. As Management gamers know, even the FBC is not protected from bureaucratic crimson tape.

“[In Control], we do clearly work together with loads of different folks contained in the bureau, nevertheless it’s within the context of the occasions which can be going down inside The Oldest House,” sport director Kyle Rowley instructed me throughout a current roundtable interview. “Whereas right here we’re form of coming from a barely completely different exterior perspective. And we had been serious about exploring, like, ‘What’s the FBC like exterior of that headquarters? How does the FBC function as an company all through the US?'”

That viewpoint is how The Lake House manages to drag a trick Treatment is getting higher at and extra accustomed to 12 months over 12 months: increasing its related universe and establishing dominoes to fall within the type of future tales, with out alienating gamers who could also be taking all of it in additional casually or enjoying these related video games out of order. “We wished to ensure that the story that we write is self-contained sufficient and is fascinating sufficient and has its personal character arcs,” Rowley instructed me, “that it isn’t one thing that it is advisable have performed Management to take pleasure in.”

Nonetheless, he says, the crew has gone to better lengths than earlier than to tie the storylines of Alan Wake and Management collectively, which is fascinating when you think about Control’s second growth was successfully an Alan Wake 2 prologue. Now, the inverse seems true.

“[We] have loads of narrative objects, together with emails between completely different FBC employees, or like, analysis paperwork which can be mendacity round, that in case you’re somebody who’s actually into the lore, that is there so that you can discover […] I feel that is form of like how we have all the time approached it. On the floor degree, it is accessible for everyone. The deeper you go and discover the world, the extra rewarding it could possibly turn out to be, particularly in case you’re closely invested in our earlier video games.”

Rowley advised the crew continues to be studying find out how to weave this narrative internet on a logistical degree, with disparate groups on every franchise and everybody’s schedules being routinely overstuffed. Nevertheless, it is made attainable attributable to how the studio’s inner Alan Wake and Management franchise groups work collectively.

“It’s totally, very a lot a collaboration between the 2 groups, as a result of we’re form of like two separate groups inside Treatment, however, you realize, we’re inside the identical studio. We’re inside the identical constructing, so it’s totally simple for us to simply arrange conferences and have discussions about stuff,” he stated. The Management crew has a sure aesthetic this growth wanted to honor, Rowley instructed me, noting that it is “not simply visible, but in addition audible.” That led to the groups buying and selling notes and concepts in order that The Lake House may really feel just like the Alan Wake 2 growth it in the beginning is whereas additionally constructing out one other Treatment storyline that is but to have its first true follow-up and is managed internally by an nearly fully completely different group of creators.

As for what else the Treatment Related Universe has in retailer, Rowley hinted on the crew’s strategy, and the way lore deep-divers might or might not have the ability to join dots they will discover in The Lake House. “Proper now, our key franchises inside [the Remedy Connected Universe] are the Management franchise and the Wake franchise. That is the place loads of our efforts are. Nevertheless it doesn’t suggest, essentially, that each single piece of content material that we put inside both sport is particularly tailor-made to a selected franchise. It is extra simply to develop the world that we’re attempting to construct as an entire.”

The Lake House can be a return to the bottom sport’s survival-horror tone and mechanics after June’s Night time Springs growth tried on a number of completely different genres by a number of shorter episodic missions, comparable to sci-fi and an oddly cute, pastel-tinted bloodbath akin to Ti West’s Pearl. Rowley stated he is glad to not have gone from the bottom sport straight into creating The Lake House because it may’ve been desensitizing to flesh out all the sport’s darker, scarier parts in a row. The Night time Springs growth was the “palette cleanser,” he stated. Now, simply earlier than Halloween, the sport will return to its roots with a extra methodically paced, tenser story. And simply as that story will fill in some gaps for Alan Wake 2, it would additionally newly ask and reply a few of its personal questions, like the character of its new Annihilation-inspired enemies, the Painted.

In all probability, it would ask many extra questions Treatment has no intentions to resolve today–if ever. For Treatment, telling one bigger, interconnected story is an extended course of that calls for endurance from the obsessive fanbase and the oldsters inside the studio alike. Not like the Marvel saga, which frequently releases a handful of entwined exhibits and films yearly, video games of Treatment’s dimension and scale arrive a lot much less steadily. Rowley stated he is been engaged on Alan Wake 2 for simply shy of six years, and ending the bottom sport was a short-lived reprieve as he was then thrust into creating the sport’s expansions.

Now, with Alan Wake 2’s ultimate chapter right here, he is prepared to contemplate it the closing of 1 storybook for him, too. “I will take a little bit of a vacation, I feel […] It will be bittersweet within the sense that I’ve actually loved working with the crew, and actually loved working with Sam [Lake]. It is good to place a pin in it, after which begin fascinated by different issues.”

For gamers who have not performed any of Alan Wake 2 however might quickly, particularly now that the bodily Deluxe Version is on the best way, The Lake House will merge proper into the bottom sport identical to the earlier growth, primarily fleshing out the marketing campaign into one longer, extra diverse saga, whereas those that simply wish to soar into The Lake House after having completed the bottom sport can play it that manner as a substitute. It is accessible now as a part of the Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Version, or could be bought by way of the Deluxe Version improve for these trying to develop the bottom sport they already personal.