Approaching Alan Wake II's Anniversary and Anticipating The Lake House

 Some time this month, we'll be getting Alan Wake II's second DLC, The Lake House, which will ultimately put the capstone on what we get out of the game.

It's funny, playing games with such replayability or merely a huge demand on your time, like World of Warcraft or Elden Ring, I still find that this game I spent maybe a total of 40 hours in to be one of my favorite gaming experiences.

I just love the utter insanity of the story it tells, the strange meta-narratives, the deep mysteries (which I'll admit might largely be mystery boxes with nothing inside) and the audacity of its creation (I mean, there's literally a 20-minute art film you might just miss if you walk out of the movie theater too eagerly).

The game was compelling, but not in the way that makes me necessarily want to play through it again and again. A big part of what makes a game replayable, I think, is how you can try to do things differently. But the story to Alan Wake II is singular (well, double, given the Final Draft). And ultimately, that's fine - because even if I'm not booting the game up every chance I get, it nevertheless swirls around in my brain constantly.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and every October, I sort of feel an anxious desire to make sure that I honor the spookiness in some way - which can be a challenge as I'm an utter lightweight when it comes to horror movies (one of these days I'm going to watch past the first episode of Midnight Mass, I swear).

I'm really eager to play the new DLC, though I'm also trying to temper my expectations. Night Springs was fun, but boy did I go through it quickly, I think finishing the whole thing in an afternoon and the next morning, with big breaks in between episodes.

At the very least I assume the Lake House will be just one story with one protagonist (though who that will be remains to be seen,) which might make it feel more substantial.

But I guess especially after the absurdly enormous Shadow of the Erdtree (still haven't attempted Radahn following the nerfs) I need to recall that this isn't going to be as substantial as a whole other game. (Seriously, Shadow of the Erdtree would be, on its own, probably the biggest FromSoft game ever if it weren't for the existing main game of Elden Ring).

I am eager, however, to see what kind of tantalizing mysteries are introduced here - generally, the expectation is that just as Control's AWE expansion teased Alan Wake II, the Lake House will probably tease Control 2.

Then I'm curious just to see if the gameplay is shaken up in any serious way - Night Springs gave you more resources than you could ever spend, turning the Survival Horror game into more of an action shooter (or some approximation thereof). The trailer for the Lake House sure looks more horror-oriented, but we'll see.

Anyway, I'm just happy to get into this.