Alan Wake 2 is worth every minute of the 13-year wait

polygon.com:

I’m hard-pressed to remember a game with as shockingly effective an opening as Alan Wake 2. From the outset, Remedy Entertainment makes its intent explicitly clear: to amplify every facet of its 2010 action-horror cult classic, and in doing so, subvert interactive storytelling tropes at every turn. Astoundingly, the studio’s grasp meets its reach, delivering an experience far darker, deeper, and weirder than anything it has crafted before.

Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games, movies, TV shows, comics, tabletop books, and entertainment experiences. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun — and worth fitting into your schedule. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch .

“This is not the story I wanted it to be,” Wake gravely warns in an opening monologue. “This is not the ending that I wanted.” Indeed, this is not the original aborted sequel to Alan Wake that was conceived all the way back in 2010. Alan Wake 2 is something altogether different and, in a post-Controlworld, something with production values and scale that the studio never would have had all those years ago.

Picking up 13 in-game years after the events of the first game, Alan Wake 2 stars not only the eponymous writer turned interdimensional warrior, but also a new protagonist in the form of Saga Anderson: an FBI profiler who arrives in the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, Washington, to investigate the latest in a series of mysterious disappearances and murders supposedly linked to a deranged cult.

Upon arriving, Saga and her partner, Alex Casey — a jaded yet