The Lake House DLC Review

You may bear in mind The Lake House from the primary Alan Wake II marketing campaign, or on the very least the outside of its grounds because it’s discovered behind a locked gate in Cauldron Lake close to the place the homicide sufferer is discovered at the beginning of Saga Anderson’s story. This FBC analysis facility was strictly off-limits to Saga, however on this new chapter we’re capable of totally discover it as returning FBC Agent Kiran Estevez. I preferred Estevez in the primary marketing campaign and was pleased to spend a while in her footwear, however the actual show-stealing performances right here come from the husband and spouse scientist workforce of Jules and Diana Marmont. Initially I used to be laughing out loud on the petty bickering between them that happens within the facility’s welcome video, however their relationship evidently took a a lot darker flip as evidenced by the numerous memos and emails I pored over as I continued my engrossing investigation contained in the sinister shapeshifting construction.

The facility itself is just 5 flooring, however due to its proximity to the Altered World Occasion in Cauldron Lake and the disturbing analysis experiments performed by the Marmonts, The Lake House is as constantly unsettling an area as something from the primary Alan Wake II marketing campaign. One flooring finds Estevez caught in a disorientating loop, one other has shifting canvases splashed in summary Jackson Pollock-style sprays, whereas one other nonetheless is only a near-never-ending room of ominously clattering typewriters, like a manifestation of the infinite monkey theorem minus the tiny simian scribes. It’s a perfectly constructed little bit of otherworldly workplace area that I delighted in exploring, whether or not I used to be thumbing by means of the chilling pages of one other Alan Wake manuscript or having conversations with a possessed portray so offended it made Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II seem to be a portrait of a pet canine.

The Lake House is totally blanketed in an unnerving environment, but it surely’s maybe a bit missing so far as puzzles go. Other than carrying battery cubes to electrical sockets, which stimulates the attention with its orange glow however isn’t notably taxing on the mind, there are in any other case solely a handful of laptop passwords to determine utilizing calendar dates talked about in memos and the like. These hackneyed hacking jobs are fairly simple to infer, and it was a bit disappointing that there was nothing new right here to match the mind-bending magic tips offered by Alan’s world-altering Angel Lamp in the primary marketing campaign.

Shadow Complicated

Fight in opposition to the shadow-cloaked employees of The Lake House is equally as simple for essentially the most half, but it surely’s nonetheless extraordinarily tense due to its sometimes claustrophobic close-quarters encounters. Estevez is perhaps an FBC agent, however sadly she doesn’t possess the shapeshifting gun or superpowers that Jesse Faden wielded in 2019’s Management. As a substitute, a pistol, shotgun, and a mixture of flashlight, flares, and flashbangs are at her disposal, and I burned by means of each final spherical and spare battery as I desperately tried to light up and exterminate every sickle-slinging flanker and sledgehammer-swinging heavy that ambushed me alongside the way in which.

Exterior of its fundamental boss combat, there’s just one new enemy kind to be present in The Lake House, but it surely’s a doozy. The long-limbed freaks that slither out of painted canvases seem to be Treatment’s towering, tie-dyed tackle the Slender Man, and since they appear proof against Estevez’s assaults I used to be going exhausting on the dodge button early on to frantically attempt to evade their outstretched clutches. Finally Estevez will get her fingers on a grenade launcher highly effective sufficient to show the tables on these paint-streaked Stretch Armstrongs, however that didn’t imply that coping with them ever turned too simple – grenade ammo is scarce, the painted shadows are slim sufficient that they’re considerably simple to overlook, and the actual fact you’ll want to cost up every shot earlier than you fireplace places some added stress into the timing of every takedown.

The Lake House’s problem jumped up even additional in its ultimate boss combat – whose id was a enjoyable shock from a narrative perspective – and it introduced my temporary return journey to the world of Alan Wake II to a stunning and demanding denouement. My brief keep in The Lake House was brutalist in its structure and brutalising in its motion, and though it’s bittersweet that my time with Alan Wake II has formally come to an finish, the tantalising story teases of what comes subsequent within the Treatment Linked Universe has me locked and loaded for Management 2.