SilentHill_SHC
IGN recently showed off eleven minutes of new gameplay featuring FBI Agent Saga Anderson. The new footage shows off a mix of combat, puzzles, and detective work, as Saga explores the small town of Watery and the nearby Coffee World theme park.
During her investigation, Saga interacts with some of the locals who seem to recognize her, but she doesn’t seem to know them. “It’s like they remember a different reality,” she thinks to herself. She decides to just go with it and play along, though.
As Saga wanders down a foggy trail in the woods to get to a shop where a set of keys are located, she hears strange noises and sees sinister-looking, fast-moving figures among the trees. It’s dark and she is using a flashlight. She’s being attacked! She doesn’t know if this has to do with the story or the cult, or perhaps it’s a mixture of both.
Empty amusement parks in games are always great places to explore, and Coffee World is no exception. Saga catches sight of the names of the rides, with fun names like the “Percolator,” “Latte Lagoon,” and so on.
The game’s visuals look amazing, imbuing the characters and environments with a gloomy atmosphere of foreboding.
The original Alan Wake game was influenced heavily by the likes of Stephen King and the Twin Peaks series, featuring the titular character as an author struggling with writer’s block. This also increases the feeling of horror, since it makes the character more of an Everyman without combat training (the Silent Hill series also did this with characters like Harry Mason and James Sunderland). But this time, players control either Alan Wake or Saga Anderson at separate times. When pausing the game, you can also enter the “Mind Space” and access the character’s thoughts.
Alan Wake II looks to be a grand return to the thrilling world of the series when it releases for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on October 27th, 2023.
