I Still Don’t Know What To Make Of Alan Wake 2’s Combat

Back in the distant days before I found my calling at DualShockers, around the time Alan Wake Remastered was announced, I was a tad confused. I probably should’ve guessed that the remaster was simply a prelude for a soon-to-be-announced sequel, but my main feeling was that the original game was fine as it was, and really there was no point remastering it because that wouldn’t fix its not-so-great combat (just remake it instead, I remember calling for). Obviously no one listened, the remaster happened, and people seemed to enjoy it, but then when the sequel was announced shortly thereafter, I became even more vocal about the need to fix the damn combat.

And again, I’m not sure Remedy listened, because by and large the combat in Alan Wake 2 feels more or less as stiff and cumbersome as it did in the original game. I’m sure it’s a bit slicker, a bit more responsive, and other things that you’d expect from a game that’s 13 years younger, but fundamentally it still comes down to guns, a flashlight that I’m yet to fully grasp many hours in, and a ‘dodge’ that could really better be described as a stumble, like the geeky kid who gets tripped up by the jocks in the school hall and is then scrambling to pick up his papers that are wafting all over the place.

Dodgy Dodgings

The evasive maneuver is a bad, bad thing, with a delay before it ‘activates’ and an awkward cooldown. In an era when we’ve been spoiled by Soulslikes—a foundation of which is to have a super-responsive and satisfying dodge-roll—it just feels outmoded, like we’re being transported back through the years to, my God, the year the original Alan Wake was released.

But I do get the crappy dodge somewhat. Unlike the turbo super-powered badasses of Remedy’s combat-superior games like Quantum Break, Control, and of course Max Payne, Wake is a neurotic writer who wears a jacket that (probably) has elbow patches, and is quite literally all stuck up in his own head. He’s a far cry from your typical ass-kicking hero, even if this isn’t his first rodeo, and that’s reflected in his combat clumsiness. It feels like this would’ve been an opportunity to differentiate deuteragonist Saga Anderson’s combat from Alan’s a bit more—make her a bit smoother to control given that she’s an FBI Agent who’s probably seen some action in her time—but as things transpire we’re left with a couple of rather club-footed heroes who struggle to get out of harm’s way in a graceful manner.

Beyond the dodgy dodging, there’s also the matter of the flashlight. Some 10 hours into the game, I still don’t know the criteria for when the flashlight boost breaks an enemy’s shield; sometimes a fully charged flashlight splutters pathetically when I try to use the boost, other times it goes full blast. The Shadows that Wake fights are particularly unsatisfying. Despite me spending some points to make Wake harder for them to spot, it seems that you’re destined to fight certain ones anyway, and their wispy form doesn’t really deliver the combat impact you’d want.

Wake is a far cry from your typical ass-kicking hero, and that’s reflected in his combat clumsiness.

You can actually take them out by simply shining your flashlight on them without using the boost (a time-consuming and dreary process), but if you use the boost on them, they either disintegrate instantly or they might get transformed into a more corporeal form, at which point you can shoot them just like Saga shoots regular Taken. Something about it just feels a bit nebulous and ‘off’.

Chasing Shadows

I guess the unpredictability of Shadows (some of which don’t even seem hostile) is supposed to build tension, but it ends up feeling frustrating; the rules of engagement are never made clear, and too often I find myself quite literally fumbling in the dark before I get blown up by some kind of rogue Shadow missile I can barely see. Add to that the inexplicable inability to do a fast 180-degree turn, and you don’t

Luckily, Alan Wake 2 has a lot of great qualities to fall back on—spectacular set-pieces and brooding horror, to name a couple—and it actually forces you into combat less than the previous game did, often settling into a smooth slow pacing that frankly many more horror games should employ. It’s just odd to me that Remedy, who have a proven track record of imaginative, satisfying combat in games, settled for a combat system as stodgy as this. The less time spent fighting as I work my way to the finale, and the more time being enveloped by its dense narrative and atmosphere, laced through with joyously kitsch, FMV segments, the better.