You can't trust anything in Alan Wake 2's dark place, even the shadows

gamesradar.com:

In Alan Wake 2, the world is conspiring to topple the ailing writer. At Gamescom 2023, Remedy Entertainment showed GamesRadar+ an exclusive gameplay demo that descended into the Dark Place, the prison that has held Wake for 13 years. It's here where the shift towards survival horror is most stark – a twisted New York City, suffocating beneath a sheet of rain, where twisting figures stand in every shadow.

What drew my attention were the sheer number of enemies on screen at times, where Alan's entire field of vision seemed to be filled with the silhouettes of potential danger. With ammunition and batteries now a scarce resource, and combat now heavier and more challenging than in the original game, I wondered how we'd ever make it through alive – and why only a handful of the shadowy figures (known this time around as Fade Outs, rather than 'Taken') actually took on a corporeal form to attack Wake. Thankfully, game director Kyle Rowley was on hand to give me some answers.

"In the Alan Wake experience, with the Fade Outs we really wanted to focus on this idea of paranoia and not being able to trust what's real. So a lot of those enemies that you come across, they won't actually be able to kill you but you'll always be unsure. We really wanted to play on this idea of uncertainty."

As Wake navigates claustrophobic corridors and wide-open spaces, you'll see these Fade Outs all around you. Sometimes you'll move through hordes of them as taunting voices leer at you from all angles, with the player slowing their walking speed or minimizing light leak to avoid detection. Eventually, one may spring into action and throw you to the ground, forcing a combat encounter as mode Fade Outs are summoned into existence. It's a little jumpy,