Alan Wake 2’s First Boss Is A Brutal Intro To The Game’s Combat

Like a slow-burning detective thriller by David Fincher (but layered with weirdness worth of David Lynch), Alan Wake 2 takes its time to get going in a way that speaks to the storytelling confidence of developer Remedy. These guys have grown into one of the best studios in the business, they know what they’re doing, and if they want to spend a couple of hours establishing the intriguing setting for Alan Wake 2 before giving you any real action to deal with, I have faith at this point that they’ll do a good job of it.

In fact, for a good while Alan Wake 2 lulls you into the sense that this might, at core, be a detective game where you’re walking around scouring for clues, investigating dead bodies, and solving the cryptic ramblings on the titular character’s scripts (that you sometimes happen to pull from the gaping holes of corpses where their hearts should be). You have a kind of half-encounter when a corpse you’re poking at suddenly comes to life to attack you, but for the first couple of hours I was perfectly happy wandering the woods looking for lunchboxes that provide gear upgrade currency, and bimbling around the scenic lakeside town of Bright Falls itself.

It’s not like the game ever lulls you into a false sense of security, exactly. Nightmarish visions intermittently splatter onto your screen, and the thrum of ominous tension-building music escalates over what feels like hours when you’re exploring the woods, so when you have your first encounter with a deer-headed cultist (in a sequence some of you may recognise from the game’s trailer) who bursts through the wall of a hut in the woods, you’re at least mentally prepared.

But what I definitely wasn’t prepared for was for my next enemy after that to be a boss, and a bastard-tough one at that; the bloated, distended corpse of Agent Nightingale (a key antagonist from the first game who returns here looking a little worse for wear). He’s grotesque, naked, and wielding what appears to be a giant tree log to pummel you into the ground with like a tent peg.

Baptism Of Fire

And damn this guy is tough. He’s pretty slow, but likes to disappear then emerge out of thin air right next to you if you run away from him. A solid back-and-forth double swing from his clobber stick, meanwhile, is enough to two-shot you. There’s no health bar, but once you deal enough damage he does some Super-Saiyan thing where he surrounds himself in a cloud of swirling red energy that swiftly drained my health the first couple of times I encountered it, utterly lost and not knowing that I just head to leave its area of effect. He hits hard, he knocks you off your feet, and the stumbling, fumbling dodge-roll that’s carried over from the original game hardly feels sufficient to get out of his way.

I’ve only just beaten Nightingale, so can’t really comment on how he compares to later bosses, but our reviewer Jeff Brooks (who absolutely loved the game, by the way) corroborated my feelings, declaring him the hardest boss in the game.

Which is kind of weird, right? While I’m sure that Nightingale isn’t objectively the hardest boss in the game, his toughness stems largely from the fact that the game hasn’t really introduced you to combat mechanics properly by this point; I hadn’t really had to shoot, or dodge, or use healing items, or anything. In the hours leading up to this, you have a half-fight that cuts away as soon as you blast your flashlight at the enemy, then you have a little scuffle with a basic low-level enemy, but that’s it.

This escalation from, well, basically, nothing, to a comprehensive high-intensity boss fight is a jarring one, and I won’t deny that I whacked my controller on the couch a few times in frustration.

I got him in the end, but that Nightingale is an unexpectedly rude awakening and rough introduction to the game’s combat. Even Elden Ring had the courtesy to pit you against dozens of lower-level enemies (and maybe a few optional dungeons) before you face off against Margit, whereas Alan Wake 2 throws you from the case board where you I just hope that Jeff’s reassurances that things get easier after this come to fruition, because I wouldn’t want what’s quickly proving to be one of the most compelling stories of the year derailed by brutal difficulty spikes.