"MORE OF THE SAME"

Remedy is a studio known for taking big swings, and their DLC episodes are no different. Alan Wake 1’s DLC episodes were purely gameplay-oriented experiences, remixing base game assets to push established mechanics in new and interesting directions. It’s a shame almost nothing from these DLC episodes carries into American Nightmare or Alan Wake II but, to me, I feel as if it makes them interesting little time capsules to return to.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Control’s DLC (and I had some choice words for the AWE Expansion as well) but both expansion packs felt like sizable chunks of content, introducing new areas and sidequests that were at least trying something new.

The idea of a Night Springs DLC episode sounded super intriguing, but I think I might’ve had the wrong idea. In my mind, this was the perfect opportunity to escape the Pacific Northwest – much like American Nightmare did with its version of “Night Springs” – but this DLC instead uses Bright Falls as its template, which makes a lot of sense. I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed though.

Night Springs is a collection of three mini-episodes, standalone chapters with their own playable characters and storylines. Each episode also feels very unique – “Number One Fan” leans heavy on the action and gunplay, while “North Star” feels closer to a classic survival horror dungeon, and “Time Breaker” feels more like a linear prestige tour with some light combat and puzzling sections thrown in for good measure. None of these episodes take longer than an hour to complete, which gives players the opportunity to play through one another in a short marathon, or to space out episodes during intermittent breaks (like I did).

There’s not a whole lot to spoil here, either. I don’t really believe “Number One Fan” or “North Star” are meant to be canon as much as they’re meant to be one-off alt universe scenarios, but “Time Breaker” hints towards some wider series connections and introduces concepts that I assume will likely be revisited sometime in a later game.

Also, yeah, if you’re a Remedy fan and you haven’t played Quantum Break, I’m once again asking you to hop on that ASAP. It’s a fun game and there were some interesting connections I found between it and this DLC.

Game balance is less of a focus this time around: in my original Alan Wake II review, I complained that resource management being manipulated by how much a player does/doesn’t have was kinda silly, and hoped they might introduce melee weapons or something to take the emphasis off needing firearms in combat. They’ve instead decided to ramp up the amount of ammo and resources in general for this DLC, which is very funny. You’re given hundreds of bullets and don’t even need half of them to reach the end of any given episode.

For “Number One Fan,” this is fine because it’s a very action-combat heavy episode, but even “North Star” gives you hundreds of bullets. The weapons also get considerable upgrades from their base game counterparts: Rose’s shotgun is fully automatic, as are the other character’s pistols.

It just feels like combat is becoming this secondary thing, refined enough to be pretty fun, but not really pushing any boundaries or experimenting with anything new. It gives this whole DLC a kind of bite-sized quality, where the story and characters are only really interesting for the hour of playtime you spend with them and not much else. There’s not enough time for players to sink their teeth into anything. Just a lot of variety, which is great! But nothing that really hasn’t been seen before.

There’s a part towards the end of “North Star” where the player steps into a room with an invincible coffee monster that needs to be avoided, and a door that needs a key to be opened. I literally found the key and opened the exit within ten seconds. I’m reminded of when Max Payne 2 does this. There’s a level where Max doesn’t have a gun and needs to avoid other armed enemies, requiring a lot of patience and on-the-fly decision making. I really liked this section but I’ve heard a lot of people decry it similarly, saying it’s too much of a pacebreaker or that it’s confusing because they’re not sure what the game wants them to do, or where it wants them to go. To that I say, I would rather have sections of a game meaningfully break up its action set pieces with ideas and scenarios that make sense instead of a game that is overly homogenous or too afraid to take risks at all.

I bring this up because I’ve seen a fair amount of people die during that one section in “North Star” and I’m honestly not sure why. I feel like the enemy introduction should be enough to clue in players that the coffee guy is a “special” enemy and the environment is built in such a way to allow players to hide instead of fight. I don’t know. Sometimes I forget how much game design knowledge is really just intertextuality.

If anything, I’m disappointed “North Star” doesn’t go further into its survival horror playground design. That coffee guy should’ve been roaming the carnival grounds like Mr. X!

As charming as Remedy’s metanarrative punches have been recently, and as much as I enjoyed my time with “Time Breaker,” for instance, I do feel as though it’s a little bit of a letdown here, too. There’s only enough time for a few puzzles and combat sections before it’s curtains, the longest taking place in the Oceanview Hotel with a monochrome filter this time. The main puzzle of this area is also pretty easy. It also gives players a pretty barebones arcade minigame which, considering I complained about Control having an arcade cabinet you couldn't play, is fine. It's variety for variety's sake. I would've liked for the minigame to have any kind of depth to it at all, though.

It’s weird because I feel like this is when Remedy should be pulling out all the stops. Getting strange and experimental and stuff. Instead we’ve got some shooting galleries and more of Sam Lake’s metatextual bread crumb storytelling, but not much else.

Overall, a harmless, fun spattering of new content. When I reviewed Alan Wake II last year, I mentioned that I’d like to see additional content like American Nightmare’s arcade mode or a Resident Evil-styled Mercenaries mode. Although Night Springs doesn’t quite scratch that same itch, it’s certainly more Alan Wake II, which is always a good thing.