Even though it was heavily rumored before the actual reveal at this year’s Game Awards show, finally seeing the teaser trailer for Alan Wake II was a blissful experience. This has been one of my most wished-for sequels, and watching it move from my wished-for list to my most-anticipated list gave me genuine and palpable goosebumps.
Considering Remedy’s track record — especially after the masterful Control and its AWE DLC — I have zero reason to expect that this game won’t deliver and then some. Seriously, Remedy has quietly become one of my favorite development studios in the game, son.
The teaser trailer doesn’t really offer any concrete details or feature any actual gameplay, which I suppose is to be expected. Alan Wake II isn’t slated to release until sometime in 2023, after all.
We do get a nice slice of that old Alan Wake internal monologue, as the trailer opens on a slow tracking shot through what looks like a horrific crime scene in a dark and spooky wooded area. It then transitions into a long shot of a rainy cityscape, a new and almost jarring contrast to the original game’s small-town setting of Bright Falls. We see our titular hero looming in the far distance and the narration continues, as sudden cuts between this city street and one of the main drags of Bright Falls in an almost Silent Hill-style melting, or a smoking camera-wipe fashion.
Then, the camera almost reaches Alan Wake, his back to us with some sort of a lightbulb torch held aloft over his head, piercing the darkness. The trailer suddenly speeds up as Alan Wake pivots to say:
This story is alive; this story is a monster
Then the trailer cuts to black. There’s a nice attempt at a jump scare, with Mr. Scratch’s bloodied, ghoulish face smiling directly at the camera, before the trailer smash cuts to the title reveal.
And with that, all is right in the gaming world.
It’s a pretty dope trailer, and I love the sound effects and music sting with the title card. I’m not gonna lie though, Alan’s new look, at least what little we see here, gives off real, Bradley Cooper as John Wick vibes. It still looks like Ilkka Villi, but it also looks like the Coop.
Either way I am clearly looking forward to Alan Wake 2 and I’m anxious to learn a bit more before it releases next, next year. You can check out the trailer below.
And if you have yet to play the original, you have some time, and the excellent remaster of Alan Wake dropped a few months back (which was one of my favorite games of 2021), including all of the DLC. And heck, you might as well dive into Control while you’re at it, since there is a bit of overlap (and even some unexpected dipping into other media), and Control is just a really awesome game in its own right.
