Alan Wake 2’s 2nd expansion, The Lake House, is here and I did not enjoy any part of it. As one of the base game and first expansion, Night Springs, biggest supporters it pains me. The Lake House takes place shortly before Janina Gavankar’s character shows up in the main campaign. A Federal Bureau of Control outpost, The Lake House, has gone quiet. You’ll spend roughly an hour or two stumbling around learning what happened in a few small levels with basic puzzles. I love Alan Wake 2, and if this is the concluding piece of content released for it I feel sad.
The Lake House
You’ll start the game by arriving at a locked gate. You’ll use your FBC keycard to gain entrance to the ground floor of The Lake House, which is a sign of gameplay to come. This one is all about security cards, and they didn’t work logically. There are three levels of security and five floors to the building. Do not make the mistake I did and think that there are five levels of security, one for each floor.
Turns out the first level of security can get you elevator access to floors 1 and 2. I wasted 45 minutes looking for a 2nd level key card to get to the 2nd floor and I felt pretty stupid, though the game didn’t make it clear. The buttons on the elevator light up indicating which floor said key card gives access to, and it wasn’t immediately clear to me.
The other type of puzzle is finding a six-digit combination to unlock PC’s. It’s used twice, and the first one wasn’t the most obvious, but I got it in the end after, again, wasting 30 minutes or so. If you figure out the puzzles quickly and are a good shot you can most likely beat this campaign in 45 minutes.
New enemy types
I put “types” for this section but it’s really just one. You get a paint monster that can’t be killed until you get security card 2 and the new gun it gives access to. Until then you’ve got random paint monsters that pop out of various canvases’ around the room and occasionally teleport and choke half the life out of you. It’s not fun, I could never tell why they insta-grabbed me, and the entire DLC has 5 health packs in it, which made the final fight extremely difficult after I entered it near death.
The backstory is a pair of scientists, who are Husband and Wife, working with “the Shadow’ of Cauldron Lake. Ole Scratch and his evil powers make their experiments go really wrong, and everything and one inside turns to shit. It’s a whatever addition to the story, in comparison to the fun world-building in Night Springs.
The main character is voiced and features the likeness of actress Janina Gavankar. She does a solid job with limited work, and overall I found myself more bored reading all of the backstory than I ever did with Alan Wake 2 or Night Springs. It feels like a lighter version of the main campaign’s story, bereft of any character development due to how short it was.
Wrapping Things Up
Alan Wake: The Lake House is a disappointing finale to the game’s content. It was released alongside a solid quality-of-life update, and if you have already spent the extra money on the Deluxe Edition/Upgrade then you might as well check this one out. Just use a guide to keep frustration down.
Alan Wake 2: The Lake House
Played on
PC
CONS
- Too short
- Poor level design/puzzles
- New enemy type is annoying and not scary
- Uninteresting story
Oof. But yes, this was my impression watching you stream for the review.
Good review. I started it and was expecting much more. When I saw the first few rooms and had to check a guide at the first computer puzzle, I revised my expectations way lower. This review will save me some time.
This is a shame because while I have no interest in going back to the base game or playing the first expansion, this looked a lot more my type of game but being short, simply not worth the time. Good review Jesse!!
It seems like if you take your time, walk around every corner, and read every piece of writing it can be 3 hours long. I speed-read a bunch and if I hadn’t gotten lost twice I would have been done in 50 minutes. Not sure how people are spending so much time in it, but make sure to get more opinions than just mine.
I finished it, as it was shorter than I thought. I was lucky to not get stuck and find my way pretty fast. It was underwhelming to say the least. Some interesting stuff to add to the Remedy universe but not much really deep or interesting.
I can’t wait for Firebreak and Control 2.