The State of the Keepers

 When we arrived in Northrend back in 2008 at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, the undead Scourge was certainly our top priority. The Scourge has a significant presence in every zone except possibly Crystalsong Forest (though Icecrown Citadel looms large over it,) though I think the zone it probably has the least presence in (Grizzly Hills gives it a run for its money) is Storm Peaks, because, well, frankly, there's other important stuff going on there.

When we arrived, we got swept into a very convoluted quest chain that had us first helping some goblins deal with some rogue Vrykul, then helping said Vrykul deal with hostile giants, then working with said giants to uncover some of the mysteries of what the hell had happened with the Keepers of Ulduar. Ultimately, we teamed up with Thorim, and discovered the treachery of Loken, his brother (so to speak) who had been corrupted by Yogg-Saron. How long ago had this happened? Like, tens of thousands of years ago, if not more.

Ulduar's significance at the time was primarily that it served as the prison for Yogg-Saron, one of Azeroth's four Old Gods, but it was also the home of the Keepers, the leaders of the Titanforged on Azeroth, effectively making Ulduar the central command for the Titans' facilities on Azeroth.

The Keepers, if I recall correctly, were Thorim, Hodir, Mimir, Freya, Loken, and Tyr, and we would later find that Ra (known as Ra-Den to the Mogu,) Archaedas, Ironaya, and Odyn were also among their number.

Exploring Storm Peaks, we found that all Keepers' respective temples were abandoned, though Tyr's had been for a very long time. Gradually, we pieced together that Loken had been corrupted by Yogg-Saron, gradually capturing the other Keepers and placing them under a kind of mind control. Tyr had uncovered this treachery long ago, and fled south to what are now the Eastern Kingdoms, where Loken sent a pair of C'thraxxi to kill him, one of them succeeding in what would become Tirisfal (literally "Tyr's Fall"). Actually, the other C'thraxxi would attack Zul'Aman, and ultimately be defeated by Ula'tek, though only imprisoned (which is why we'll have to fight Kithix in the upcoming 12.1.5 patch). I believe Archaedas and Ironaya left either with Tyr or around the same time, both ultimately falling to... um... us, in Uldaman (whoops!)

Odyn likely left before all of this went down, because he threw a hissy fit when Tyr empowered the Dragon Aspects after their help fighting Galakrond, feeling that they should not rely on beings that weren't direct creations of the Titans. Ra had left after Sargeras defeated the rest of the Titans and a fragment of their souls found their way into the Keepers, overwhelmed and seemingly the only one who really understood what had happened. (Though this must have happened after Loken programmed the Curse of Flesh into the creation forges, as Ra-Den accidentally spread it like a computer virus to the Mogu).

Truly, the timeline here is a little tricky, especially because we don't really have a calendar system in Azeroth - the War of the Ancients was ten thousand years ago, and I think we have a handful of events that are put in relation to that (I think the War of the Satyr was a thousand years later, and the War of Shifting Sand was only a thousand years before the present day).

I actually don't remember if Ironaya and Archaedas were technically Keepers, or perhaps Watchers, which I believe is a lower rank.

But last we checked, here's where each individual is at:

Thorim should be at Ulduar, and was most recently seen helping Beast Mastery Hunters claim Titanstrike back in Legion. He seems fine.

Freya should also be ok at Ulduar, having been freed from Loken's madness in the raid and, like Thorim, helped us fight Yogg-Saron (unless we wanted to get the cool mount).

Mimiron is the rebuilt body of Mimir, who created the Mechagnomes (not to be confused with the playable Mechagnomes, who, like the standard Gnomes, were Flesh-Cursed versions of the original Mechagnomes, but just underwent cybernetic upgrades to try to return to their Titanforged roots). After he was slain I believe by Loken, his creations came and built him a new body that appears like a giant Mechagnome. Again, we freed him from Loken's subsequent madness and he helped us out.

Hodir is in the same camp, freed from the madness and back to his old business. The war between giants in Storm Peaks was always actually a little vague, but given that it was all started by Loken, perhaps it has settled.

Loken is dead. After Odyn left, Loken became the Prime Designate, and thus effectively leader of the Keepers, which meant that his death at our hands triggered the Re-Origination contingency, though once we fought hard enough to convince him, Constellar Alganon the Observer decided to abort the process.

Odyn was trapped by Helya, his vrykul protege, within his sort of false afterlife, the Halls of Valor, where he seemed to have used the knowledge he gained by trading his eye to Mue'zhalla to make a weird facsimile of Bastion and his own pseudo-Kyrians, the Val'kyr, which, ironically, Arthas would then copy himself to make undead Val'kyr out of the Vrykul whose loyalty he secured. While Helya committed great crimes, a lot of that was apparently revenge for Odyn being just an absolute fuckwad to her. With Helya's death in her own false afterlife of Helheim, Odyn was able to leave the Halls of Valor and announced an intent to go back to Ulduar, so we can probably assume he's there.

Archaedas is dead, slain by us in Vanilla before we knew all that much about the Titans or their creations in the first place. Same goes for Ironaya. Real failure to communicate here.

Ra-Den was captured by Lei Shen, the Thunder King, his heart used as a source of power to, I think, reverse the Curse of Flesh. After who knows how long deep down within the Throne of Thunder (wait, have I never gone and done that fight?) we fight him to knock some sense back into him. However, while fighting off the madness of N'zoth, Ra-Den is captured and taken to Ny'alotha, where he is corrupted and we are forced to kill him for real.

Tyr died in the early days of humanity, but in Dragonflight, we were able to reconstruct a body for him and bring him back to life. Tyr seems... very depressed, but he also does seem to remain the pro-mortal champion that inspired, among other things, the Knights of the Silver Hand.

So, that means that most of the Keepers are actually still alive. What, then, though, flows from that?

Well, there's a pretty strong implication that The Last Titan is going to see us find ourselves in an antagonistic relationship with the Titans and the Titanforged, as we've strayed pretty damn far from their original designs (those of us who are even descended from their creations) and the Titans' benevolence has seemed less of a given of late, especially when their "Ordering" of Azeroth starts to look like a kind of Black Empire with different aesthetics (why was the Worldsoul relocated from Harandar to the Titan-created Worldcore? Harandar certainly doesn't seem like a hotbed of Old God corruption).

Still, I'm not convinced the Titans as a whole, nor their creations, are going to be unified in a condemnation of the mortals of Azeroth. While Aman'thul seems to be the patriarch of the Pantheon and is likely sort of... patriarchal in his attitude. We know that he objected to incorporating the power of Life into Azeroth when Eonar was doing her work on it because it wasn't something they understood and could control.

Indeed, Aman'thul is the first of the Pantheon, and helped to "awaken" the other Titans. Did this involve forcing them into a form similar to his own?

Among the Keepers, Odyn seems by far the most likely to be an antagonist. I mean, the guy was kind of a douchebag even when we met him in Legion, and while he was friendly enough to us, he was deeply patronizing, and we know that he did awful things to Helya and also made some really shady deals, like trading his eye to Mue'zallah, who then passed it on to the Jailer.

Given Eonar's general embrace of Life as a power (also, the fact that her spirit was hiding out on a world called Elunara suggests she has some alliance/connection with Elune, who appears to be some sort of Life Goddess) I'm inclined to think she'll be on our side, and perhaps because of that, Freya will as well (as Eonar's most direct creation among the Keepers).

Tyr also seems likely to be on our side, as he seems the most willing to go against the grain and fight on behalf of mortals.

The other surviving Keepers, though... I could see going either way. I don't know if our efforts in Ulduar earned us any slack, but given that the Titanforged are kind of by design sort of rigid in their ways, I wouldn't count on them being friendly.

Remaining Questions After Control Resonant

 I've only been waiting for three years to play the sequel to Control, as I was only sort of vaguely aware of it when it came out in 2019 and didn't play it until 2023, but given how much I fell in love with both it and the Alan Wake games, which are set within the same universe (universes, technically) I found myself really champing at the bit to continue the story of the Faden siblings and the deeply flawed and problematic federal bureau that has played such a huge role in their lives.

Remedy loves raising more questions than they provide answers. Resonant tells us a few things, but it also leaves some open for interpretation and then further just raises more questions.

I'm not going to be able to talk about every mystery, reveal, and open-ended question here, but I'll center on the ones I find most interesting and compelling.

And obviously, we're going to put this behind a spoiler cut.

Control Resonant and the Faden Siblings

 Control as a franchise, and Remedy as a studio, likes to lean into multilayered narratives. There's a straightforward story, the secrets behind that story, and then the deeper mysteries that we're left to speculate about.

Resonant's reluctance to say anything explicit about the Blessed Organization or its part in what goes on in Manhattan (my theory is that they were only observing, rather than instigating) ties into this: while we Remedy Sickos can speculate ourselves to insanity about Blessed, the games seem to be happy letting this be a background detail that doesn't really get into the spotlight.

There's another pretty out-there idea that was first presented in Control that gets some real fuel in Resonant.

Let's talk about Jesse Dylan Faden.

Control Resonant Complete

 I have beaten Control Resonant.

As one might expect given the first game, there's a post-game state in which you can get a bit of denouement and see where the state of things lands. I'll go light on details until we get past the spoiler cut, but I will say that I'm... not crazy about the final boss fight, to be honest. Again, details to follow, but in a game with some genuinely stellar bosses, the grand finale feels a bit like, well, the sort of underwhelming bosses that Remedy has often been criticized for in the past.

There is a New Game Plus mode that becomes available, though I'm probably not going to jump into that until I've really cleared out nearly everything, and given that I don't think there's any Final Draft-like "true ending" to it, I'm not really champing at the bit for it.

I liked the game, obviously, though I don't know where it really ranks. I think on paper, it's probably a better game overall than the first Control, but it's also less revelatory in that we already know this world (it's fitting that Dylan already knows a bunch about the FBC and its terminology, as we don't really need to go over everything again). The combat is better-balanced (Control's combat was great but you hit a point where using the Service Weapon was really just what you did while you waited for your power to recharge to do Launch again) and there's more of it.

Ok, let's actually talk about how it ends:

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: