Summary
Alan Wake 2is a week away from release and Remedy Entertainment has not been shy about the direction it will be taking with its long-awaited sequel. The studio has been quite clear about its switch to a full survival horror experience compared to the original, which opens up many interesting ideas about how exactlyAlan Wake 2will feel and play. While it is always risky for a studio to change tones between games,Alan Wakealready contains many aspects that could easily transition to true survival horror.
Among its inspirations, Remedy has pointed to theResident Evilseries as a major influence onAlan Wake 2. Given the popularity and success of the recentREtitles, starting withRE7and through this year’sRE4remake, it seems only natural for Remedy to want to capitalize similarly and provide players an experience on par with them. There is one specific long-runningREtradition however that would be a perfect fit forAlan Wake 2.
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Alan Wake 2 Can Find Inspiration In This Resident Evil Tradition
There are already a handful ofResident Evilelements that are confirmed forAlan Wake 2, but it would be fantastic to see another that’s been in almost everyREgame—multi-stage or recurring boss fights. Many other survival horror titles have included these, of course, but when it comes to elaborate set-piece boss battles,Resident Evilset the bar and is still the gold standard by which most others are measured.Alan Wake 2could put its own stamp on these by combining its existing elements into distinct bosses that intimately connect to its story and characters.
MostResident Evilbosses are grotesque abominations, often animal or insect-like, or some variation and hybrid thereof. ButAlan Wake’s main antagonist, The Dark Presence, can take literally any form it wants. This allows for a huge range of novel design possibilities in the boss monster area. Further, since it prefers to manifest against Alan using his own imagination and psyche, this could be leveraged to incredible effect. Making the boss’s visions of Alan’s distorted nightmares and discarded ideas from his ongoing horror novel opens up a lot of interesting and terrifying potential for them.
Alan Wake’s established lorepresents another opportunity for a memorable and multi-level boss. Mr. Scratch, Alan’s twisted doppelganger, could function likeResident Evil’s Nemesis or Mr. X. He could become increasingly unhinged in subsequent encounters, requiring players to fight him in more dangerous forms as he unveils new or upgraded attacks. Poltergeist objects, like the bulldozer, steam engine, and pickup trucks from the original could be expanded on too. Sections where Alan must fight off huge possessed machines that need to be carefully dismantled piece by piece would also lend themselves to massive spectacle boss scenarios.
One other mechanic fromAlan Wakeis the flashlight. Players must focus it on enemies to remove their shadow shield, stunning them and opening them up to receive damage. This could also be integrated into big boss battles, requiring players to target specific areas of either an enemy or the environment to exploit vulnerabilities in creative ways. While there are some otherwaysAlan Wake 2can portray its enemies, going one step beyond and incorporatingResident Evil-style bosses would be a great inclusion, especially since it’s already leaning so heavily intoREdesign elements. Having these kinds of multi-stage evolving combat situations could put it in the same conversation asResident Evilin terms of the best survival horror boss design.
Alan Wake2releases July 15, 2025, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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