Speculation on Alan Wake III

 I got so jazzed by the Alan Wake easter egg in Control Resonant. While I think the "RCU" will benefit from having other series outside of Control and Alan Wake, I'm obviously just so enamored with Alan Wake as a series that I can't help but find my mind fixating on it.

Alan Wake II might not be my favorite game in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay (though I'd be curious to revisit it having now played a few other Survival Horror games) but it's right at the top for use of video games as an artistic medium, telling a story like none other I've seen in gaming in a manner unlike any I've seen in gaming (and honestly, playing into my own tastes as someone influenced by David Lynch as well as lots of twisty stories about dubious perception of reality, like Fight Club.

(Sidenote: Fight Club is one of those movies where saying your a fan kind of invites some follow-up questions, as there are plenty of people who seemed to miss the whole point of it. If you thought that the Fight Club video game where you could unlock Fred Durst as one of the fighters was a good idea that was consistent with the themes of the movie... I think you might need to re-think what that movie is about. Though hey, I never played that game, and maybe it was doing something subversive and ironic. I doubt it, but I can't say for sure.)

Anyway, Remedy has shown a willingness to go in very different directions with its sequels. While I actually don't think that Control Resonant feels unrecognizable compared to the first game, even with the shift to melee combat (we still, for example, are encouraged to play aggressively thanks to the health fragments dropped by foes, and there's a lot of floating in the air dodging things) we certainly saw a pretty big shift in Alan Wake's gameplay from a more action-oriented style to the slow-paced survival horror of the second game (though still keeping the signature "first flashlight, then gun" pattern.)

Thus, I'd be really curious to see whether a hypothetical Alan Wake III would shift things again.

First off, let's talk about the plausibility of a third game. The second game's true ending (the Final Draft version) sees Alan reawaken from his "death" with the Bullet of Light having gained the knowledge of his past cycles through the events of the game, and having become what he calls the Master of Many Worlds. There's something a bit ominous to that name, as an expansion of Joseph Campbell's "Master of Two Worlds" end-state for the Hero's Journey.

What seems won at the end of the second game is that A: the "Bright Falls AWE 2023" has ended, with no more Taken threatening the town or the world, and B: that Alan is finally out of the Dark Place (my understanding is that the Writer's Room he's in at the end is literally the room in the Valhalla Nursing Home, rather than the one in the Dark Place - though it's interesting that the Valhalla Nursing Home seems to have kind of become the "retconned" version of Bird's Leg Cabin).

Saga's story seems resolved: Logan has been rescued from the childhood death that was written into the story, and is now alive again, and this likely means Saga's life is back to how it was prior to arriving in Bright Falls. But Saga is also now initiated into the Weird and aware of her own parautilitarian nature. I do wonder if she'll stick with the FBI or join the FBC - certainly I can imagine Estevez would be eager to recruit her. I don't know whether Saga is likely to play as prominent a role in the next game, though her connection to Mr. Door could potentially draw her back into the conflict. Part me just wants her to be able to live her life again and not deal with all of this horror.

While Alan is victorious in the end, he's also kind of right back where he started: Alice is once again in the Dark Place, and while she seems to be better-equipped to handle that, he's still motivated to return to her. (Isn't it interesting that both Control and Alan Wake are stories in which people are struggling to reunite? I still haven't finished Control Resonant, but Dylan spends the bulk of it trying to find his sister, when the first game was motivated primarily by Jesse trying to find him).

It's interesting that it's implied that Alan's attempts to escape were so convoluted simply because he made it so convoluted, thinking it had to be. Thus, I wonder if his next plan to rescue Alice is going to be similarly convoluted and cause a bunch of other problems that will give us the events of a third game.

Sure, he's seemed to experience some kind of spiritual growth, but he's still Alan.

If the video we find in Resonant is any actual hint at what might happen in a future game (and that's a big if) here are the elements I think it could point to:

First, that he might be teamed up with Alex Casey. This does present a challenge given that Casey's voice actor, James McCafferey, died shortly after AWII's release. But unless he had also done any VO work necessary for the Max Payne remakes, I'd assume that they'll be looking for a sound-alike who can take over the role.

If we assume that retired FBI agent Alex Casey and long-missing author Alan Wake do actually found a Security company called A Watchful Eye (presumably as part of a scheme to investigate paranormal stuff,) perhaps the game will lean into a kind of mystery-solving gameplay system. (Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a narrative Alan creates for them to get into the Dark Place.)

Alan Wake II was initially planned to have a mystery-solving mini-game that Saga would do in her chapters. But Remedy realized that they would effectively be making an entire other game to cram into its Survival Horror game and felt that this would A: take too much effort and B: might frustrate players in Saga's segments.

But a whole new game might be the perfect time to introduce this as the core gameplay system. Maybe they can take ideas they came up with for that and flesh them out into a new mystery game in which Alan and Alex solve paranatural mysteries as they search for Alice.

Now, why is Alex Casey involved here? Well, first off, he was a professional investigator, so he'd be a good person for Alan to have. But they're also two people who were hosts of the Dark Presence, and I imagine that might have forged a bond between them. (Also, it lets Sam Lake show his mug all over the game, which I know he loves to do.)

Obviously, Remedy hasn't actually announced anything (I think the only projects they actually have lined up are the Max Payne remakes - and I wonder to what extent those are just going to be straight-up faithful recreations of the games or if they'll inject more RCU connections into them) but here's hoping.

The State of the Scourge in The Last Titan

 The Scourge are my favorite villain faction in World of Warcraft. Indeed, they've had a pretty huge influence on my fantasy tastes in the 20 years I've played this game. Going into WoW, perhaps thanks to watching through all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in my freshman year, I was all about demons as fantasy monsters to fight (in the Buffyverse, vampires are sort of undead but are technically a demon possessing a dead body, though the demon retains all the memories of the person that had died. Also, demons in that universe aren't inherently evil, though vampires are except in the rare cases, like two of them, where they have their human soul returned to them).

I had even kind of avoided playing an Undead character simply because I sort of assumed Undead players were all edgelords. And then I made one and I had a dark realization - that I'm a bit of an edgelord myself.

I will say that the utter menace that the Vanilla Plaguelands held got lost a bit in the Cataclysm revamp. The Western Plaguelands are more of a battleground between Alliance and Horde while the Eastern Plaguelands, though they do remain a hotbed of Scourge corruption, give us a somewhat more innocent story of the Paladin Pals and Fiona's caravan going around the zone. Back in Vanilla, both zones felt oppressive and hostile, and Light's Hope chapel truly felt like a tiny bastion of safety in the midst of a hostile land. A few details reinforced that: for one thing, Light's Hope didn't have any of the fortifications it does now, and was just a single little church building mostly in ruins that the Argent Dawn was posted up at (they even had a neutral and interactable Scarlet Crusade representative there, desperate for any help). Also, in the original level ranges, the Eastern Plaguelands was one of the highest-level zones in the game (maybe the highest? I think you wouldn't start getting quests there until 55 or so).

Icecrown is also a zone that I think radiates menace better than just about any other we've visited. Possibly the Antoran Wastes or The Maw give it a run for its money (I have so many thoughts on the Maw, primarily that the things I liked most about it were what a lot of players complained about, and I felt it got ruined in 9.1). The Scourge were a constant presence in Wrath of the Lich King, with at least some presence in each zone (maybe not Crystalsong Forest? But there was barely anything there).

But the Scourge is not what it once was. Originally created as a cannon fodder to clear the way for the Burning Legion's invasion in the Third War, Ner'zhul and Arthas managed to break away from the yoke of the Legion following Arichimonde's defeat on Mount Hyjal, and when Arthas became the Lich King, we had the period of "peak Scourge" that ran from the end of the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III to the end of Wrath of the Lich King. (Bizarrely, their only real presence on Kalimdor post-Third War was in Razorfen Downs, where they were secretly corrupting and empowering the Quillboar - which comes as a real surprise when you quest through the Barrens given that there's no real hint of undeath elsewhere in the zone).

I think it's also notable that not all undead in WoW is Scourge - there are plenty of ghosts (particularly of ancient Night Elves who perished in the War of the Ancients or the Sundering) but we even see zombies and even Abominations pop up in places like Duskwood, where the corruption is probably coming more from Karazhan or just, you know, ancient curses and old crimes.

But still, the Scourge was the only real example we had of a disciplined and organized effort to convert the entire world into undead.

Arthas' death led to the crowning of Bolvar Fordragon as the third and final Lich King. In theory, this was necessary as a means to keep control over the Scourge and prevent them from running rampant over Azeroth. Now, I've often wondered if that was actually any worse than having someone like Arthas commanding them in an organized manner. While I do think the intent by the game's writers was that this would be somehow worse, it's easy enough to headcanon that, less than a warning of how bad it could get, Terenas' warning was more like "hey, you have a huge opportunity here to force the Scourge into just staying here frozen in Icecrown and not bothering people if someone with a strong enough will becomes Lich King." Bolvar's reign largely accomplished that. While he directed the Knights of the Ebon Blade to do some deeply questionable (ok, maybe just bad) things in their class campaign in Legion (the attack on Light's Hope - to be fair, I think Bolvar anticipated that it would be Darion and not Tirion who would be raised as the fourth horseman, but it did get a lot of paladins killed, and the attack on the Ruby Sanctum was also pretty indefensible,) for the most part, the Scourge ceased to be much of a threat.

He didn't have a short leash on everyone, though: we do see in those Cataclysm-era Eastern Plaguelands quests that there are still Scourge forces and the Cult of the Damned trying to cease the healing of the land and corrupt it further, like their attempt to make Gidwin into a Death Knight. But these splinter factions of Scourge are clearly not very powerful. There's a Crypt Lord who claims to be the new leader of the Scourge whom we take out in a fairly simple quest there.

Shadowlands complicated the Scourge narrative a lot: while the Shadowlands had been established as early as Wrath (Death Knight get their Acherus Deathcharger by journeying into the Shadowlands,) the actual structure of the plane was elaborated on quite a lot - initially, the Shadowlands were presented lik the Emerald Dream, as a kind of parallel plane to the mundane world, a bit like how in D&D the Feywild and Shadowfell are both reflections of the Prime Material plane. Indeed, my interpretation was (and still is, sort of) that when we die in-game and are in our spirit form to go reclaim our body, that "ghost world" we're in is The Shadowlands. The presentation of the plane in the expansion of the same name does seem to refute this, but it might be similar to D&D's Ethereal Plane, where there's the "Border Ethereal" that overlaps the Prime Material and can be used as a means to pass unseen and even through objects like walls, and the "Deep Ethereal," which is an endless misty expanse where one can find portals to other inner planes like the Feywild, Shadowfell, or the Elemental Planes. So, maybe the "ghost world" is the "Border Shadowlands" while the place we visited with Bastion and Revendreth is the "Deep Shadowlands." Just like in D&D, it's simpler to get into the Border region than it is to go to the deep region of the plane.

Anyway, beyond having this "realm of death," it also established god-like figures and a cosmic power of Death separate from the demons of the Burning Legion or the Void that the Undead draw their power from. Structurally, the Scourge as an army is a weird facsimile of the forces of Maldraxxus, though ironically, as gross and monstrous as Maldraxxus appears, it's not actually bent toward evil (well, at least not originally).

Shadowlands introduced a ton of new elements to the lore, and while I like the idea of making Death into this power with its own god-like figures in and of itself, certainly some of this could be handled more gracefully - especially as it was implied that the Jailer had secretly been behind nearly the entirety of Warcraft Lore (such as implying that his agents had even orchestrated Sargeras' fall from grace).

Indeed, the retcon of the Nathrezim being creatures of the Shadowlands, rather than the Fel, originally, was particularly jarring for a number of reasons. First off, their homeworld of Nathreza was already established, so then making them the creation of Sire Denathrius felt like it was giving a second origin of their names and natures. But it also makes it really weird that the Nathrezim were introduced as the Legion's handlers for the Scourge - if the Nathrezim were always secretly loyal to Death, wouldn't Mal'ganis and Detheroc and all those guys actually be in favor of the Lich King breaking away from the Legion? Sure, they're master infiltrators and can keep up a cover story, but this feels just so very weird and stinks to high heaven of retcon (which is 100% is).

The Shadowlands as an expansion had some very cool ideas, but there was so much messiness in incorporating it into the broader WoW lore that I'm almost inclined to think that Sylvanas' line about "the Shadowlands are not what they seem" could very easily be Blizzard giving itself license to retcon anything they presented in that expansion.

While I think the Jailer was a character who could have been super interesting but wound up being really dull (the reveal that he was the original Arbiter was a cool origin story, but his actual characterization and indeed just his physical design from a visual standpoint were... I didn't like them,) I do think the idea of "Domination Magic" coming out of the Shadowlands and forming the basis for the Scourge's power is an interesting one. And I do really like the idea that the Scourge's power is fundamentally different from the demonic power of the Legion.

But let's return to Azeroth:

At the start of Shadowlands, Sylvanas tears the Helm of Domination apart, effectively making the existence of a Lich King impossible. The Scourge is no longer held back by Bolvar, who is also left as effectively just a Death Knight now. We did spend the pre-launch event for Shadowlands in Icecrown fighting Scourge, but while the Scourge remains a general threat (even in Midnight, while questing with Arator we do have to fight some Scourge attacking Light's Hope) they really seem downgraded.

Now sure, this could just be a matter of emphasis. The Scourge were no less a danger during the events of Burning Crusade, but we were dealing with other issues, and so they didn't figure prominently in the story. Perhaps post-Shadowlands, the Scourge has become a bigger problem than it was under Bolvar, but we're just not seeing it as much because we've got dragons and void things to deal with.

One element we haven't really explored a lot is that there's a new helm: in Shadowlands, to counter the effect of the Jailer's Domination Magic (which incapacitates us at the end of the Torghast raid and forced Anduin into an Arthas-like role as pseduo-Death Knight,) the remnants of the Helm are used to forge the Crown of Wills, which acts as an almost diametric opposite to the Helm by magically reinforcing free will. Currently worn by Pelagos, who has become the new Arbiter (my main is a protection paladin, and had Pelagos as his soulbind, so I like to say that my character is canonically best friends with God,) it seems like its effects are tied more to the Shadowlands themselves, and likely embody a kind of reformation of the place where souls can decide where they want to go.

But does this have an effect on the Scourge? We really don't know. While the Forsaken have had free will for a while (though there were times from about Cataclysm through Shadowlands where it didn't actually seem that way - Night Elves raised by Sylvanas' Val'kyr during the War of Thorns pre-BFA event very suspiciously joined the Horde's efforts immediately after being raised - perhaps a hint of Sylvanas' alignment with the Jailer) what if that's starting to be a broader thing for the Scourge?

After all, it was Illidan's attempt to shatter the Frozen Throne that first allowed the Forsaken to break away. Surely the destruction of the Helm of Domination would lead to an even greater effect. But, of course, while the Forsaken did regain free will, plenty of them chose to do some nasty and evil shit.

While I assume The Last Titan is going to focus far more on the Ulduar/Storm Peaks/Titan stuff in Northrend, the fact that we're going back there means that we must have some interaction with the Scourge. I wouldn't be surprised if they play a major role in the middle raid tier of the expansion, similar to how we've gotten a kind of break from the Devouring Host while we deal with Ula'tek and her whole deal.

Not Much Left to Clean Up - Might Be Time to Finish Control Resonant

 While I devoured Alan Wake II in just the weekend it came out (in those innocent days of 2023) that also sort of makes sense for a survival horror game, which tend to be a bit shorter in length (you probably wouldn't want to be in such tension for such an extended time). Control Resonant now game out about a week and a half ago, and I'm sure my hours in the game are far more than they were in my first AWII playthrough (maybe total, actually). In comparison to the first Control, Resonant is for sure bigger, and its open-world design of course extends the length of the gameplay if you are doing lots of side objectives.

The main thing is that I've finished all the Side Stories, the last being the one where you have to find an Altered camera that appears in various locations across the world. There's like, more than ten of these, and you have to piece together where the camera can be found based on photos you find shot from the camera's perspective. The final stage, after finding them all in any order, is to do one last sequence where you have to capture one of several iterations of the camera in an area near the Oldest House one after the other, and if the cameras catch you, you're set back a step (it starts off with like seven of them, but the number diminishes each time you sneak up behind them and close a lid).

Anyway, not a terribly lore-heavy quest (though I really wondered if they were going to tie it to Alice Wake, who literally described photography as a means to "put a cage around the infinite," freezing a moment in time much like these cameras do. Maybe one little Alan Wake easter egg is enough) but fun enough. I should go talk to Langston and see if he has more dialogue about it.

Oh, another late-game side quest involves an experiment by Pope, and in the aftermath of this sort of dubious success, we get a bit of confirmation that while she and Jesse didn't have a relationship beyond a close friendship and professional respect, Pope had feelings for her that presumably went beyond the platonic. I don't know which way Jesse swings, but I know that Monty Zander (creator of the insanely amazing Alan Wake II review "Beyond the Lake" that is honestly a work of art in and of itself) is a... Jemily? Papen? shipper, so he'll be pleased that we've got at least a lean toward this.

I also finally found the last of the "Secret Organization" hideouts across Manhattan, and Dylan calls Zoe to tell her about all these spots. I am about 90% convinced that this is the Blessed Organization, but if we were hoping for more concrete answers about what is going on with Blessed, the game refuses to be explicit. Indeed, we do see Blessed-associated businesses mentioned and find a voicemail that could be Chester Bless himself speaking (if that's not a pseudonym, of course) but these explicit links to Blessed are in a separate sidequest with no explicit connection to these hideouts.

I think if we're seven years on and Remedy doesn't want to get explicit about Blessed, maybe we shouldn't hold our breath for them to become a major factor in the RCU. Still, if memory serves, the Cult of the Tree was hinted at in the Night Springs easter egg in Quantum Break (I never played that, as I've had PlayStation and Nintendo consoles for the past couple generations, but no Xbox) and that certainly played a huge role in Alan Wake II.

Like I often do with games I've really become invested in, getting to the stage where I can finish the main story (and to be fair, maybe there's a lengthy chunk of finale to get through) I find myself hesitating. On the other hand, I'm also really keen to avoid spoilers (which I've done a decent job of so far) so I might want to get in there before a random YouTube video's title or thumbnail gives something away.

Quick spoiler cut:

Alan Wake Sighting!

 With Control, Remedy officially initiated the "Remedy Connected Universe," linking its games to a shared cosmos and allowing crossovers between them. Alan Wake II made some use of this, with the FBC showing up and taking the case off of Saga's hands at a sort of midpoint shift moment (the game doesn't have a strict 3-act structure, but I'd say the attack on the lodge by the Cult of the Tree and the arrival of the FBC sure feels like such a moment in the story).

The first Control had only tiny references to Alan Wake in the base game, but its AWE expansion was all about that link, establishing Alice's status and the history of her coming by the Oldest House (though I seem to be the only one on the internet to think that the "organization" that helped her recover her memories from 2010 was not the FBC, but was instead the Blessed Organization, especially given Barry's connection to it and his growing bond with Alice over the years after Bright Falls). And, of course, it showcased Emil Hartman, or the thing that had been Hartman, warped by both Dark Presence and Hiss (and honestly showing off the physical distortions that would characterize more of Control Resonant's take on the Hiss) as the final boss.

Well, playing through Control Resonant, I've been perhaps a little underwhelmed by the lack of intrusions from the Alan Wake side of things - though it makes sense. Control as a series is kind of on a larger scale, and while the Bright Falls AWEs are among the most momentous in Bureau history, the crisis in America's biggest city doesn't seem to have anything to do with what is going on in the Pacific Northwest (though given Alan is from NYC, I wondered if we might come across the real Parliament Tower, which could have been cool).

I do know that Remedy doesn't want to alienate new players with too many references to other games, which is, honestly, the artistically responsible thing to do. But as a Remedy sicko now, I'm desperate for all my little references and such.

And I've found a big one! (I'm certainly not the first, as I've seen YouTube thumbnails that point to this, but wanted to stumble across it on my own.)

While trying to finish up the Freeze Frame side-story, where you have to track down an Altered Item camera that can freeze reality (to put a cage around the infinite? Is this Alice's camera?) and so you need to find a way to sneak around behind it to put the cover over its lens - the camera zipping around to many different locations across the world - I had to go into an apartment building to come around to the back of the camera in The Park.

In that building, there was an open apartment, mostly bare and smeared with what looked like black paint, as if someone had dipped their hands in paint and rubbed them on the walls. There, a television set was glowing with static, and upon interacting with it, I got...

A video, which thankfully goes in your archive (I watched it again immediately) under the category of The Master of Many Worlds. There, we see a dark scene and two lights - flashlights in the dark. Alan's narration comes in as we see him and Alex Casey (so, Ilkka Villi and Sam Lake) walk into focus. Alan talks about how he has nightmares every night, even when he isn't sleeping, and he's always terrified that "The Scratcher" will come and get him. But the taste of coffee in his mouth tells him it's real.

Something jumps at them, the two open fire on the unseen assailant. We see the two of them doing some kind of dance, and we hear what sounds like a Poe song playing in the background (paraphrasing Six Deep Breaths, with lyrics like "your dream is my nightmare," and "your nightmare can't have my dream.")

Alan says he's working as a night watchman, and has a patch on his jacket that says "AWE," and above it, "All Watchful Eye." (EDIT: actually, it's "A Watchful Eye," which is a bit less menacing and a bit more reasonable as the name of a security company.) Below I think it just says like "Security Company" (though the "Security" part is in shadow so I'm just guessing).

What could it mean?

Well, more than anything else, it's a fun and cheeky reference to Alan Wake, and maybe that's it. But at the same time, we did get stuff even in 2016's Quantum Break that would point to elements of Alan Wake II, like the Cult of the Tree and Saga Andersen, a video that could have been dismissed as a silly easter egg.

The existence of jackets that say "AWE" on them might actually close a hole in the plot when considering the "This House of Dreams" blog that came out a couple years after the first Alan Wake game. There, Samantha Wells (presumably a cheeky reference to Sam Lake, who almost certainly wrote the blog - there was some ambiguity over whether it was a fan project until the Thomas Zane poetry on the blog wound up getting quoted directly by Tom Zane in AWII) talks about I believe dreaming about being visited by people in jackets that say AWE, who came to confiscate some materials at the house there (oh, and the blog was in like 2012, but Samantha is writing about moving into a house in Ordinary, Maine, as part of some deal encouraging people to move into the abandoned town).

Probably what wound up happening is that the Bureau of AWEs was adjusted to be the FBC, but if Alan and maybe Casey (maybe Saga as well, though perhaps she's stayed on with the FBI) have formed their own company to look into the paranatural, this might make sense. Both spent time possessed by the Dark Presences, and Casey's retired from the FBI, so maybe he's willing to do this in his retirement.

It does start to make it feel more plausible that we get an Alan Wake III. While II will be an insanely tough act to follow, it also makes me excited for the extreme experimentation we might get.

Control Resonant has certainly had its big swings, but I'd say that while it feels a little more daring than the first Control, it's not quite as insanely out there as Alan Wake II was. It's probably (almost certainly) more fun to play in the moment-to-moment gameplay, but I don't know that any game has hit atmosphere quite as expertly as AWII.

So, I'm just feeling a buzz of joy from getting to see my boy Alan getting spoopy again. (Also, looks like he got a haircut, but kept the beard.)

EDIT: Oh, almost forgot:

Outside of the apartment where you find this video, there's a light that is blinking in a repeating pattern. I've looked it up online to see what it says in Morse code, but have gotten conflicting responses.

Rating the Resonants

 Remedy is not exactly known for having particularly great boss fights, but I think Control Resonant might change that - the Resonants, each zone's tragically patterned individual who has become a vessel for the dangerous resonance that threatens our reality, are all unique fights with really breathtaking visual design. The fights as well have their own rhythms to them that present unique challenges as Dylan fights to mercy-kill them.

I'll be going into a spoiler cut here. There are other "bosses" in the game that are directly tied to the main plot, and I haven't gotten to the game's final boss either, so it's not included here. Ironically, the Resonants are actually, with the exception of the first one, technically optional, but because each unlocks your combat powers, you'll definitely want to take each of them out. Doing so does respawn all enemies in the zone and also brings back various side objectives on the map, so I think that the optimal path is to "clear out" a zone before you go face them. Doing so isn't too tedious or hard, as there are plenty of objectives and other things in each zone that aren't affected by this respawning. I'm also not sure if clearing a Resonant lets foes endlessly respawn - I don't think so, but my general sense is that you should probably have enough foes to fight and resources to collect that you can unlock just about if not everything in a single playthrough (it's possible that some of the last few talents and Aberrant upgrades might require you to go into NG+, but where I'm at I certainly feel like I'd probably be at the right power level to fight the final boss).

So, let's take a look at these in terms of aesthetic design and then the feel of the fight itself.

Control Resonant's Earthbound Interlude and the Hardest Resonant Yet

 Ok, how to do this without spoilers...

When we played the first Control, we knew that Jesse ultimately tracked down the FBC and entered the Oldest House to rescue her brother, after 17 long years of separation. That was her whole motivation to begin with, not to become the FBC's new director and spend seven years locked inside of the Oldest House battling Hiss.

In the first game, we did slowly start to piece together the siblings' backstory and the events of the AWE that took place in Ordinary, Maine in 2002, but it was all detailed purely in documents and logs that only gave us fragments. I wondered if we would ever be able to see the events themselves.

Well... let's get into spoiler territory:

Drops: Sorrow Knight Fighter

 I think this might be the first time we've gotten a full-on subclass from D&D Beyond Drops, and this one's a fascinating one.

Hey folks, it's October! That means it's spooky season, all leading up to my favorite holiday, Halloweeen. Getting into the spook spirit, D&D Beyond Drops has unleashed a whole bunch of scary monsters, feats, and this subclass.

Sorrow Knight Fighters are attuned to the magic of the Shadowfell, with some tragedy or horror in their past that connected them to this realm of gloom and despair. The Shadowfell is probably my favorite D&D plane, and I love fighting (and running) spooky monsters in shadowy settings.

Broadly, the Sorrow Knight has some similarities with the Battle Master, but let's get specific:

Level 3:

Despairing Strikes:

You have a resource called Despairing Strike Dice, which can be used to enhance your attacks. You begin with 3 of them, which are d8s. At level 10, they become d10s and you get a fourth. At 15, they become d12s and you get a fifth. After expending them, you get them back on a short rest.

    So, this is, I think, a bit fewer dice than a Battle Master, and I think there's less versatility for your options, but it's reasonably comparable.

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend a DSD and roll it (one die per attack maximum, though no limit on uses per turn), adding psychic damage to the attack equal to the amount rolled, and then get to add one of the following effects:

Abandoned: The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw (DC based on your Wisdom) or have the Deafened condition until the end of your next turn. While deafened, the target regards all creatures it can see as enemies until the end of your next turn.

    Hey, so this won't work on a Gulthias Blight, who is immune to being Deafened. Still, while deafened is a pretty weak condition to impose (it does almost nothing to hinder a foe) the "treat everyone as enemies" option is potentially useful. While it won't guaranteed that a foe will attack its allies given that you and your allies are still there to be targeted, it is something you might use on a healer or some other creature that is trying to do things to benefit other creatures. Or, you could use it on an enemy with a big AoE to ensure that they don't avoid hitting allies when going after your friends. Situational, and of course, not very useful against solo monsters, but interesting.

Dread: The target had Disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes before the end of your turn.

    This is pretty broadly useful, either setting up a spellcaster or someone else who has a clutch saving throw ability, or even just setting you up for Abandoned or one of the other options you get later on.

Solemn Gaze:

You gain Darkvision with a range of 60 ft, or if you already have Darkvision, the range increases by 60 feet.

    Nothing huge, but not bad to have.

Also, as a Magic action, you can attempt to search the mind of a creature you can see within 30 feet. They must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC based on your Wisdom) or you learn an emotion that looms large in their mind, such as worry, love, hate, etc. If the target can see you, it knows you have read its emotions. You can do this Wis times per long rest (minimum 1).

    The utility of this feature depends a lot on DM interpretation. This isn't detect thoughts - you just get an emotion that looms large in them, not necessarily that they're feeling particularly strongly at the moment. In other words, I think this could add a ton of flavor to NPC interactions, but the degree to which this information is actionable is not obvious. Flavor-wise, though, it's amazing. And this is on top of the other level 3 features we're getting.

Level 7:

Dreaded Appearance:

When you use Tactical Shift, you can teleport 30 feet instead of moving. Immediately afte ryou appear, you can briefly take on the appearance of a creatures' fears, visible only to those creatures. Each creature of your choice within a 10-foot emanation muse make a Wisdom saving throw (DC based on your Wisdom) or take Psychic damage equal to a roll of your DSD (this does not appear to expend it) and is Frightened until the end of your next turn, or on a success, they take half damage only.

Once you take on this appearance, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

    Note that I think the alteration for Tactical Shift is unlimited (other than by, you know, how many times you can do that). The damage here is pretty trivial, but an AoE fear is not a bad thing to have. And we're getting that as a free carry-on with all the other benefits of Tactical Shift, so I think this is pretty good. Obviously, as we've seen a lot of features with DCs based on Wisdom, you're going to want to pump that up as much as possible with this subclass.

Level 10:

Unsettled Strikes:

You have the following new options to use with your Despairing Srikes:

Apathetic: The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or have the Incapacitated condition until the start of your next turn. While incapacitated, the target can only give one-word responses when spoken to.

    Damn. I mean, the one-word thing is fine, but incapacitation can be enormous. For one thing, it breaks concentration, but obviously the bigger thing is that it prevents them from taking any actions, bonus actions, or reactions.

Lost: The target makes a Charisma saving throw. On a failure, the target is Blinded and its speed is reduced to 0 until the end of its next turn. On a success, its speed is halved only instead.

    That's not too bad either - Blinded is usually a Con save condition, and so you're probably more likely to succeed with this one. A good way to lock down an enemy and then give everyone advantage on attacks against them.

Weary: The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or gain 1 Exhaustion level. The effect cannot increase the target's Exhaustion above 2, and the levels from this effect are removed at the end of your next turn.

    So, this is... you see Exhaustion and your eyes go wide, but this isn't quite that. That being said, giving a foe a -2 or even a -4 to all d10 tests (and the -4 will be more likely to happen if they're already at -2 to Con saves) isn't bad. But it's only for one turn. Essentially, I wonder if I'd be more enthusiastic about this if I weren't thinking about how insane it would be to have long-term and unlimited exhaustion from this. Don't forget that it also slows a target.

Level 15:

Grim Constitution:

You have resistance to Necrotic and Psychic damage.

    Right off the bat, these aren't bad ones to have, especially if you're in a spooky Shadowfell/Ravenloft game, where you're likely to encounter both damage types a lot.

In addition, when you are subjected to an effect that reduces your HP maximum, you can make a DC 15 Con save, and your HP is not reduced on a success. Each time you make this Con save after the first, the DC increases by 5, but taking a short or long rest resets it to 15.

    Less broadly useful, but it could be good when fighting particularly undead (again, common foes in a Shadowfell/Ravenloft game). I'm surprised this doesn't just give immunity to such things. Eh, this one's not amazing, though the damage resistances are pretty good.

Level 18:

Grieving Mantle:

When you use your Action Surge, you attune yourself to the Shadowfell for 1 minute or until you become incapacitated. For the duration, you have the following:

    Before we get into the specific functions, I do kind of like how this turns Action Surge into the trigger for a "super mode" for Fighters. While this does then kind of discourage using it multiple times per combat, it's an interesting bit of tech.

Shade Form: When you are hit with an attack roll, you can use a reaction to become insubstational for a moment and reduce the attack's total damage to zero.

    Wow! Not halved, not gaining resistance. This just full-on nopes out of an entire attack. Obviously this depends a bit on how many attacks you're taking in a round, but the ability to use this if you get crit by some massive monster is really clutch, and while Action Surge is a limited resource, this means that for a whole combat you're going to be undoing one attack that hits you each round, which is quite nice.

Unwavering Resolve: You have immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions, and if you have either when you activate Grieving Mantle, the condition ends for you.

    Naturally if you have a Devotion Paladin in your party, this won't do anything for you, but it's still pretty nice if you don't have those bases covered.

Overall Thoughts:

    I actually think this is a pretty solid subclass. It's doing a lot of things that Fighters can't really do in most cases - indeed, some of these effects are pretty rare even for spellcasters (is "Abandoned" kind of Enemies Abound, a spell from Xanathar's?)

    You will be pretty dependent on getting a high wisdom, because there are a lot of saving throws that enemies will be making against these effects. Fighters can afford a secondary ability score a bit, but if you have a way to somehow attack with Wisdom, that could be very helpful. Taking magic initiate Druid and grabbing Shillelagh could work pretty well here, and maybe Polearm Master to enhance the power of a Quarterstaff (as the cantrip won't let you grab something that works with Great Weapon Master). Multiclassing with Druid or Ranger could also make some sense here, though if the campaign is going high enough, I'd be pretty excited to get Grieving Mantle.

    Yeah, generally I think this is a pretty solid subclass, and it drips with flavor, which is always a big positive.