Remedy’s Night Springs DLC Offers A Reminder That Meta Isn’t Enough

Remedy's Night Springs DLC for Alan Wake 2 is filled with playful meta-references, but it lacks the character development, impactful plot beats, and fun mechanics that made the original Alan Wake and its sequel cult classics. Like many of its literary inspirations, Night Springs suffers from prioritizing style over substance.

I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Wake 2, which led me to dive into other Remedy titles like the original Alan Wake and Control—both of which exceeded my expectations. I was excited to finally play Night Springs, the first of two planned expansions for Alan Wake 2.

Remedy is known for creating unsettling, experimental stories that take inspiration from sources like Twin Peaks, House of Leaves, and Fight Club. These works are rich with metafictional moments that remind the audience that they are engaging with a constructed story. Remedy's games, much like their literary predecessors, embrace experimentation to create humor and horror.

Night Springs is no exception. The DLC, which features three standalone stories, or episodes, is named after a fictional Twilight Zone-esque tv show from the original Alan Wake game.

The final episode of Night Springs is a meta-infused romp through Remedy’s connected universe. The episode follows an actor named Shawn Ashmore as he travels through multiple dimensions to escape the insidious Mr. Door. Ashmore is portrayed by the real-life actor Shawn Ashmore, who has played several characters within Remedy’s connected universe. The beginning of the episode starts with a humorous in-game interaction between Ashmore and Remedy’s creative director Sam Lake.

MORE FOR YOU
Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Leads In 4 Latest Surveys
NSA Tells iPhone And Android Users: Reboot Your Device Now
Harris And Trump’s Biggest Celebrity Endorsements: NASCAR’s Danica Patrick Says She’ll Vote For The First Time In 2024

If you are a fan of Remedy’s connected universe (as I am), these moments are great fun. But disappointingly, this fun evaporated for me when it came to the actual gameplay of the episodes.

At the end of episode three, Ashmore travels through multiple dimensions. These dimensions are represented by different visual styles and mechanics: Ashmore’s story plays out through a comic book, then a 2D side scroller, then a text-based adventure game.

These different moments of media history are cleverly blended and fun to watch. However, the content of these mini-games is sparse: the 2D side scroller for example, can be completed by simply standing against a wall and shooting continuously. The level requires no thought, skill, or timing to complete. You can pretty much get through it by standing still and spamming a button.

For me, the result was that much of Night Springs felt like experimentation for experimentation’s sake alone. Ironically, Night Springs shares this trait with many of its inspirations.

House of Leaves, one of the novels that influenced Alan Wake, uses typographic experimentation to spark terror. It’s a beautiful and unsettling novel that reinvigorated the modern horror genre in the early 2000s.

The novel describes a horrifying house that is larger on the inside than on the outside. Its proportions change shape, trapping, maiming, and killing characters who are stuck inside. In House of Leaves, Danielewski’s unconventional typographical choices (words transfigure into different shapes across the pages) captures the sinister proportions of the house. Through contorting the words on the page and addressing the reader directly, Danielewski fosters a fear that the horror within the novel’s pages will also be unleashed upon the reader.

However, Danielewski’s other novels, including The Familiar, were critiqued for being incomprehensible. Michael Schaub sums up this view in his review of The Familiar for The Guardian: “Take away the typographical gimmicks, the frequently unfathomable dialogue, and the confusing storylines that pass for a plot, and you’re essentially left with nothing.” Stylistic experimentation is great, but when it is not in service of emotion, or story, it falls flat.

At their best, Remedy’s games are a lot like House of Leaves: they use experimentation to pull the reader into a fictional world. But in Night Springs, the metafiction often felt more like a gimmick.

I’m hoping that Remedy’s second DLC for Alan Wake 2, The Lake House, offers a return to form, coupling the studio’s signature humor and experimentation with a greater attention to storytelling and gameplay. Remedy has released rich, complex DLCs in the past (e.g., the AWE DLC for Control). They have a history of using DLCs to hint at future games. The Lake House DLC will tie in closely with Control, likely providing information about Control 2, which has been announced without a release date.