Alan Wake continued
Oct. 12th, 2010 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dzurladyI am very excited because the next DLC1 for Alan Wake, The Writer, is coming out very soon! (I had hoped it would be today, but it turns out to be tomorrow here in Australia - it’s coming out on the 12th, but that's in US time.) I found out this weekend, which is fortunate given that last time I checked there was no date.
I really liked the first DLC, The Signal. It fit with the game really well while still taking it in a new and enjoyable direction, and it seems that we will be getting more of the same only better for The Writer.
I have heard some suggestions (inevitably) that the DLC should have been part of the game, but I disagree – the tonal shift would have been strange. It works beautifully as an extension but would have seemed out of place in the game itself.
I am about to go into a little bit of plot related detail here, but it is vital that you do not read the hidden text below if you are ever going to play the Alan Wake, because it is full of major spoilers for the ending, which will ruin your enjoyment of the game.
Alan Wake is the story of a writer who goes to Bright Falls to stay with his wife, Alice. They go to a cabin on an island in the middle of a lake, and while Alan is out of the cabin he hears Alice scream. He goes back in to look for her, but then he blacks out and wakes up five days later in his car, crashed on the side of a road. Alice is missing, the island no longer exists and he doesn’t know what has happened. The story of the game is Alan trying to find his wife and work out what has happened, while fighting the Darkness, a mysterious foe which takes over people, ravens and some objects and drives them to kill him.
SPOILERS: It turns out that the Darkness had trapped him during those five missing days and forced him to write the events that are taking place – a horror story that comes true. At the end of the game, he manages to free Alice but disappears himself; in the DLC it turns out that he is still trapped inside his own head where the world is dreamlike and malevolent. The words for helpful objects float in the air, and when you shine your torch on them they turn into real objects with a clatter of typewriter keys. The world is twisted, full of chasms and weirdness, like evil flying books where previously there were ravens. It is a beautiful extension of the game. END OF SPOILERS
Someone suggested that perhaps the sequel could be released online, in an episodic formula, and I think that would be pretty cool, even though I don’t think it would work.
Structurally it would be fine – Alan Wake is does something a bit different and quite enjoyable with its structure, something like the structure of a mini series. It is split into 6 episodes, which end on a cliffhanger, and at the start of the next episode there is a short recap of key plot elements. I assume this structure would be repeated in the sequel, and releasing the game one episode at a time would be a different way to play the game and increase suspense, something like tv now or newspaper serials in the past.
However, it is unlikely to work given people’s play styles – gamers don’t take that long to play games. People would be annoyed by the breaks and lose the flow of the game, and stop playing. (I played through the first game in feverish happy intensity in one week, and I am not a fast gamer.) Maybe it could work if they released one episode a day, and then after that you could get it all at the one time subsequently, but I think mostly you would just get people bitching about it. It is a cool idea though.
1Downloadable content – this can be anything from outfits for your xbox avatar or wallpaper for your xbox; through to additional gameplay elements, such as new areas to play in, more missions to go on or just decorative features for your character in-game. Generally DLC must be purchased.
Discussion about gameplay DLC usually centres around a) how expensive/ much of a rip off it is, b) how good/bad the new gameplay sections are and c) how the gameplay DLC should have been part of the original game anyway (point C usually occurs in conjunction with point A).
In the case of Alan Wake, the upcoming DLC is new gameplay (and thus story) which I am very excited about.
I really liked the first DLC, The Signal. It fit with the game really well while still taking it in a new and enjoyable direction, and it seems that we will be getting more of the same only better for The Writer.
I have heard some suggestions (inevitably) that the DLC should have been part of the game, but I disagree – the tonal shift would have been strange. It works beautifully as an extension but would have seemed out of place in the game itself.
I am about to go into a little bit of plot related detail here, but it is vital that you do not read the hidden text below if you are ever going to play the Alan Wake, because it is full of major spoilers for the ending, which will ruin your enjoyment of the game.
Alan Wake is the story of a writer who goes to Bright Falls to stay with his wife, Alice. They go to a cabin on an island in the middle of a lake, and while Alan is out of the cabin he hears Alice scream. He goes back in to look for her, but then he blacks out and wakes up five days later in his car, crashed on the side of a road. Alice is missing, the island no longer exists and he doesn’t know what has happened. The story of the game is Alan trying to find his wife and work out what has happened, while fighting the Darkness, a mysterious foe which takes over people, ravens and some objects and drives them to kill him.
SPOILERS: It turns out that the Darkness had trapped him during those five missing days and forced him to write the events that are taking place – a horror story that comes true. At the end of the game, he manages to free Alice but disappears himself; in the DLC it turns out that he is still trapped inside his own head where the world is dreamlike and malevolent. The words for helpful objects float in the air, and when you shine your torch on them they turn into real objects with a clatter of typewriter keys. The world is twisted, full of chasms and weirdness, like evil flying books where previously there were ravens. It is a beautiful extension of the game. END OF SPOILERS
Someone suggested that perhaps the sequel could be released online, in an episodic formula, and I think that would be pretty cool, even though I don’t think it would work.
Structurally it would be fine – Alan Wake is does something a bit different and quite enjoyable with its structure, something like the structure of a mini series. It is split into 6 episodes, which end on a cliffhanger, and at the start of the next episode there is a short recap of key plot elements. I assume this structure would be repeated in the sequel, and releasing the game one episode at a time would be a different way to play the game and increase suspense, something like tv now or newspaper serials in the past.
However, it is unlikely to work given people’s play styles – gamers don’t take that long to play games. People would be annoyed by the breaks and lose the flow of the game, and stop playing. (I played through the first game in feverish happy intensity in one week, and I am not a fast gamer.) Maybe it could work if they released one episode a day, and then after that you could get it all at the one time subsequently, but I think mostly you would just get people bitching about it. It is a cool idea though.
1Downloadable content – this can be anything from outfits for your xbox avatar or wallpaper for your xbox; through to additional gameplay elements, such as new areas to play in, more missions to go on or just decorative features for your character in-game. Generally DLC must be purchased.
Discussion about gameplay DLC usually centres around a) how expensive/ much of a rip off it is, b) how good/bad the new gameplay sections are and c) how the gameplay DLC should have been part of the original game anyway (point C usually occurs in conjunction with point A).
In the case of Alan Wake, the upcoming DLC is new gameplay (and thus story) which I am very excited about.