Alan Wake 2: Night Springs Review
There exist only a handful of game adventures that throw you into the recesses of your own mind. Alan Wake 2 (review) was one of them. Coming after more than a decade, this surreal survival horror had me singing “Show Me the Champion of Light,” long after the curtains fell.
Any Alan Wake fan will know about Night Springs, a mini-series of stories that used to air in the game. Well, as the theatrical We Sing chapter had me craving more of the Night Springs TV show, I was over the moon when I found out about the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC. While Warlin Door may be the ultimate antagonist of the Remedy Connected Universe, he’s one hell of a host.
With the new Night Springs DLC, he’s back with all the panache and then some. After equal parts being lost and immersed in this three-part episodic series, here’s what you should know about my multiversal adventures.
Alan Wake Night Springs: An Episodic Multiversal Adventure
While I was super pumped about getting to revisit the game with the Final Draft update, it still lacked that something I couldn’t put my finger on. The update wasn’t anywhere near an answer to the massive pile of questions the shadowy realm had left for us.
Named after the in-game TV show, the Night Springs DLC stems out into three trippy episodic adventures for you to play through. Each of these episodes has you playing a different central character in the Remedyverse.
You can play these episodes in any order. However, I’d recommend playing Episode 2 before heading over to 3, for it will make more sense that way. With all that out of the way, let me take you through it all now.
While the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC took me just about 2 hours to get through, it finally connected those dots and made the Remedyverse all too real.
Rose to the Rescue!
If you have played the main game, you already know that the cuckoo waitress, Rose, is Alan Wake’s biggest fan. While her obsession with Wake may be borderline creepy, introducing her as a playable character in the DLC was a great move. With Episode 1: Number One Fan, Remedy doesn’t hold back on filling up the wackiness meter, as you see a world fabricated by Rose’s too-out-there mind.
What starts as a regular day of waitressing soon turns into an unexpected action comedy flick of Rose plowing through a horde of haters of Wake’s work with a fully automatic shotgun. Bright Falls has never been this pink, and the silly undertones of gore only made it better. Don’t worry though, for ammo is plenty, and you can blow everything in sight with that shotgun.
Your primary objective is to save Alan Wake, who has been taken hostage by his twin evil brother Scratch. Rose’s bizarre and overly dramatic way of narrating the story is what made me giggle more than once. From the Bright Falls folk cheering for Rose to “Save Literature” to saying things like “We’ll run the diner while you’re gone but be way worse at it”, it’s all absolutely hilarious.
There’s also a boss battle against Scratch (oh sorry, Wake’s twin brother) as well, which sees Rose ultimately disciplining the villain in a rather motherly fashion. What’s happening?! Ultimately, she finds Wake behind a very obvious door in Valhalla Nursing Home and rescues him. The episode ends with them sharing a romantic dance and a very PG-13 kiss, which again adds to the wackiness of it all.
After the episode ends, Door takes over, followed by a very quirky and catchy Night Springs theme song. Yep, another song that I’ve been unable to get out of my head.
Things Get out of Control
Next up, we see Jesse Faden from Remedy’s Control making it to Bright Falls in the North Star episode. This is when things start getting interesting. In this episode, Faden lands right in front of, wait for it, Coffee World! I don’t know about you, but Saga’s eerie Coffee World adventure was one of my favorite segments in the main game.
Getting to play a different, darker green-and-red-hues-dominated version of it had me overjoyed. Not to mention that you’re playing as Faden, which is supposed to give you access to her extradimensional gun with telekinetic powers. Sadly, it doesn’t, and you’re limited to the good old flashlight + revolver combo.
That did disappoint me as I was banking on making the game 10 times more fun, much like RE7 Biohazard’s End of Zoe DLC, which saw Joe Baker punch the brains out of those moldy creatures. The point is that an overpowered Jesse would have been fun, for sure!
You also have Polaris with you, which I thanked the stars for. You’ll need its help to navigate through the inky depths of Coffee World. Alongside the extradimensional entity, Sheriff Breaker is there to drop subtle hints as well and make you feel not too alone in a messed-up world.
Breaker’s worried that there’s a coffee ‘cult’ that has been doing something to the townsfolk. Faden’s there to look for Dylan, her brother. To find him, she has to crack the coffee world mystery. Thankfully, just like Alan Wake 2, ammo is plenty yet again.
There are quite a few interesting puzzles, with a mathematical puzzle that requires decoding the creepy coffee’s right brewing temperature. Returning Alan Wake 2 won’t find the backtracking annoying since you only access a portion of Coffee World, with the other being underwater.
My favorite part of this Alan Wake 2 Night Springs episode is the small stealth section toward the end. You must make it through two deadly thermoses (yes, you heard that right, you coffee) who one-hit KO you if they spot you.
Once you make it through it all, you are greeted by a turned Breaker. Further ahead, you finally enter a room with what seems to be your brother inside a container. But, as the camera pans, it turns out to be Alan Wake?
So, is Dylan the nefarious Scratch from the main game guising himself as Wake? Maybe. While I still am not definitely sure what it is, I do know that the plot has thickened yet again.
And, that’s where the episode ends, with yet another enigmatic Door hosting and Night Springs theme song. At first, I thought that the theme repeats. But, that’s not the case, and while the base melody of the track stays the same, the lyrics change as per the episodes. Remedy’s attention to detail is phenomenal.
Breaker, You Beauty
If you have had any doubts about whether Quantum Break’s Jack Joyce is the new Remedyverse’s Sheriff Breaker, the final Time Breaker episode of the DLC is a subtle nod of approval. Remedy’s hands are tied with copyright. Nonetheless, they have very cleverly made Breaker from the main game a vital character in this weird wacky multiverse.
Sam Lake also makes a goofy appearance as the director is obsessed with the multiverse, and they’re working on making a game called Timebreaker. In this episode, you play the actor Shawn Ashmore who played the role of Jack Joyce in Quantum Break and Sheriff Breaker in Alan Wake 2.
Before you know it, Ashmore has a Polyhedron Reality Shifter and is pulled into layers of parallel realities, leading him straight to “The Master of Many Worlds”, aka Door.
Faden makes an appearance too, which is why playing the second episode before makes more sense to me. Faden looks to save this universe’s Breaker, who can easily travel through the multiverse.
Turns out, Door is petrified of Breaker’s existence and has been going around killing different versions of him in the multiverse. He considers him to be a very big threat, and we see Ashmore land in a monochromatic Oceanview Hotel where time works in mysterious ways.
The next bit turns into a comic strip (not even kidding), which is an absolute visual treat. If that was not enough, you land on a classic 2D arcade setting with an unsettling 8-bit track playing in the background.
After this, Breaker’s next stop turns out to be what seems like the deserted edge of the multiverse, which then finally turns into a choice-based text game. With this much variety and depth, Time Breaker easily takes the crown of the best episode in the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC.
Moreover, it goes to show Ashmore’s capabilities of jumping to and fro between alternate realities. As Faden says:
“Finding the place that made him may be the key to killing him. That was our theory, but we could never find it. Maybe you can.”
By the episode’s end, I had developed this soft spot for Ashmore’s character and Remedy did some solid justice here.
The Remedyverse Thickens
While the first two episodes are alright, the Time Breaker episode makes this DLC so worth it. Now, we know who Door is and why he does what he does, we know that Sheriff Breaker (at least his actor variant) is one hell of a badass, Alan Wake now has all the help in the world to get out of The Dark Place, and Faden’s sibling is a whole different story altogether. Not to mention that Alice (Wake’s wife) is in The Dark Place too now, following the base game’s events.
All of Remedy’s characters are carefully woven into the convoluted multiversal plot, and I’m all in for it. With the Max Payne Remakes on the way, I won’t be surprised if Remedy somehow links Payne to it all too. From the looks of it, all roads lead to Alan Wake, indeed.
Not going to lie, I’d have jumped out of my seat had Ahti the janitor made an appearance. Well, he also has a very important role to play in the Remedyverse, for we know at this point that he’s probably an ancient God.
Verdict: Is Jumping Back into the Madness Worth It?
To be very honest, I had little to no complaints about the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC. However, here’s what worries me. All of these episodes are hosted by Door. That could directly suggest that Door is in total control of the multiverse and is using Remedy’s characters as mere puppets. He certainly has something very malicious up his sleeves.
While it was a fun two hours, I can’t help but wish it had been longer. When it comes to DLCs, I hold the Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine expansion in high regard. It was a whole game on its own, bringing hours of content to the player.
Having grown very fond of the Remedyverse with games like Quantum Break, Control, and Alan Wake 2, I was left asking for a lot more. I’m looking forward to the Lake House DLC which is set to land this year as well, for it will help us make a lot more sense out of Sam Lake’s vision of the multiverse.
All things considered, if you are excited about the Remedy Connected Universe like me, you shouldn’t skip the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC It’s worth every penny of the $20 it asks for and then some.
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