Alan Wake II's New Game Plus is now live, and I figured this was the right time to delve back into the game that's been swimming around my brain for the past month and a half.
Knowing most of how the plot is going to go, I'm resolved to take this journey slow. I finished the "Invitation" chapter, which doesn't really have any combat other than the initial "this is how you fire a gun" tutorial (that I managed to die on once because I forgot you don't need to shine light on Nightingale in the morgue and spent too many precious seconds fumbling for the not-yet-active "shine your flashlight" button).
However, there are already a couple differences - the first being that the opening monologue by our eponymous writer is different, suggesting that, perhaps, there are not only monsters and victims, but a third category: heroes. That really starts us off on a positive note, though the gruesome scene of Nightingale crawling out of the lake and getting hunted down by the Cult of the Tree is, as far as I could tell, unchanged.
I was a bit more thorough on exploration, so I got three Lunchboxes worth of manuscript fragments in the daytime exploration of the Cauldron Lake region (given that this is the only time you get to go there without any hostile Taken, I figured it was a good time to be very thorough) and also found a Cult cache that I hadn't gotten in the first run.
As far as I can tell (and we'll see if things change when we return to Cauldron Lake for the true first mission) the only thing you keep is any weapon upgrades you got and any music collectables you got.
But the big appeal here is that there's going to be new and changed cutscenes and manuscript pages. I've found one of these, talking about Saga experiencing a sensation of deja vu when examining Nightingale's body outside the abandoned convenience store.
In addition to trying to be a bit more of a completionist, I'm also going to really try to stay on Normal difficulty for the entire game. There's a new Nightmare difficulty mode, which I have... basically no interest in.
Anyway, let's see if we can find this miracle illuminated.
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