5 Things I Hope Alan Wake 2 Does Better

I've had Alan Wake in my Steam library gathering dust for years now, after a more impatient, worse gamer, and much younger me tried it out a while back and absolutely hated it. Now, years later, I returned to the title once more and had a completely new experience with it.

Incredibly, I fell in love with it passionately — I loved everything about the game — from Alan's bitterness to the combat (which I had dreaded the first time around). And this is all in good time, too, as Alan Wake 2 was announced during 2021’s The Game Awards Show and is set to release this year! That being said, just because I love Alan Wake so much doesn't mean I don't have some nitpicks I hope the sequel improves on. Here are five things I look forward to Remedy building upon from the original!

1 — No More Clunky Combat

While I absolutely loved the uniqueness of the encounters in Alan Wake, I really wanted to scream every time I would die due to the clunky movement and dodging. I lost count of the number of times I had to restart because Alan got stuck against something or the enemies surrounded me and didn't let me walk. That's not to mention how much less frustrating it would be to fight objects if I could adequately avoid them. I don't blame the game too much — after all, it's quite an old title with 13 years under its belt — but I do hope that the sequel makes it less heavy to move and dodge around enemies.

2 — Better Collectibles

When a game has things to collect, I try hard to get them all unless they start getting in the way of my immersion. The problem with the manuscripts in Alan Wake, however, is that they literally hold a lot of context; this meant that missing out on a page was so much worse than having to go out of my way to scout for them. 

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to see all the collectibles go (even Night Springs was fun to watch) but I certainly hope that they do a better job at not letting it become such a tedious (or necessary) task. It wasn't until I considered getting the 100% on Alan Wake that I finally understood why my wife loathes achievements centred around gathering all the collectibles (especially when there are multiple of them)!

3 — No More Flying Objects (or At Least Much Fewer)

There was very little I had to complain about during my 20-hour run of Alan Wake: I enjoyed the characters, the fighting was incredibly fun, the story was amazing... but I swear that every time I had to face the flying objects, I'd get just a bit closer to wishing I had never booted up the game in the first place. They're hard to dodge, they hit incredibly hard, and — worst of all — they're usually placed in annoying areas, such as a collapsing bridge with little space to run. I get that they wanted to add a variation to the enemies, but this was just too often and irksome for my taste. 

4 — Better Achievements

I'm going to be honest with you — I was smitten so deeply by Alan Wake that, despite how frustrated I was at the end with the number of flying objects, I can't wait to 100% the game. It's going to take forever, but I hope I get there someday. That being said, I was incredibly disappointed to see that many of the manuscripts are locked behind the Nightmare Difficulty. I plan to pass the game a second time to get the achievement for the hardest mode, but it's sad that the developers locked such context and information behind a skill wall, and — worst of all — you’re forced to play the game at least once before you unlock the hardest difficulty.

Additionally, although I appreciate having many more hours to go in Alan Wake, I think the game would've benefited from having fewer achievements, especially when it comes to the speed run ones.

5 — Better Pacing

Although I enjoyed my time with the game much more than I originally thought, I felt the game was unnecessarily elongated at the end. It felt like it could've reached a conclusion about a chapter or two earlier had the developer cut a lot of unnecessary twists and turns in the plot. I hope that in the sequel, we won't be doing stuff just for the sake of extra playtime!

That's it for the five things I hope Alan Wake 2 gets better! If you haven't played the game yet, you might want to check it out before the second one comes out! You (probably) won't regret it!