It’s not the same campy, off-kilter tone I came to love in the first game rather, the sequence plays out like a straighter detective procedural with the duo trying to piece together clues about a supernatural killer on the loose. My demo began with Saga slowly walking through the woods, picking up loose clues and soaking in the atmosphere. It’s hard to get a full sense of the game from the slow-paced snippet I saw.

Instead, I’d get to see 30 minutes of Saga’s investigation, which has an entirely distinct tone from the original game. Alan Wake himself will be playable in the game as well, but Remedy is currently staying mum about what his gameplay looks like in the Dark Place. She’s an FBI agent who gets sent to Bright Falls to investigate a cult, sending her deep into the woods with her partner. The gameplay segment I saw at Summer Game Fest was based entirely around Saga, a new character in the sequel. Though that’s not to say the sequel has lost any of its weirdness.

And it does that while modernizing the original’s horror formula, making it feel more in line with Capcom’s current wave of Resident Evil remakes. From what I’ve seen so far, the sequel seems to be more True Detective than Twin Peaks, looking at the weird world of Bright Falls through the lens of a dramatic procedural this time. If you’re expecting the same oddball, camp-horror vibe that made Alan Wake a cult hit, you might be surprised by what Alan Wake 2 has in store.

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