Alan Wake II: Night Springs

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows (Steam Deck YMMV)
Current goal: Enjoy some more Remedy weirdness

Alan Wake II was my favorite game of last year. Its mix of survival horror gameplay with a meta-textual story about trying to make the perfect sequel blew me away. I was also amazed by its gorgeous art design and wild melding of mediums, including film and even musical theater. So to say I have been looking forward to the game’s DLC would be an understatement. Now Night Springs, the first of two planned DLCs for the game is here, and I finally have time to play it this weekend.

Night Springs is a bit of an oddball expansion for Alan Wake 2. It’s a collection of three non-canon self-contained stories about side characters from the base game. What that means in practice is that developer Remedy is having more fun than ever, as the studio can handwave away any wild things they get up to in the DLC as not part of the canon. There is a story about the Alan-obsessed waitress we see in the base game, a meta-story about actor Shawn Ashmore playing a fictionalized version of himself, and even a Control crossover starring Jesse Faden. They all seem as different from each other as possible. I don’t know exactly what to expect in all of these bite-sized adventures, but I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun. —Willa Rowe