Control: AWE (DLC) | Review: A great playable announcement from Alan Wake 2

AWE is a particular product, perhaps one of a kind. It is the DLC of a game of 2019 (Control) which, however, expands and deepens the lore of one of the most enigmatic video games ever released in 2010 for PC and Xbox 360: Alan Wake. As if this wasn't enough to make you realize how difficult it is to provide one AWE review, in the middle there are also all those problems on intellectual properties that often lead a developer to abandon his creature forever (but fortunately this is not the case with Sam Lake and Remedy).

Somewhere in the shadows: where does AWE fit in?

Control is a game with an immense combat system. A title that puts immediacy at the center of its being and, once you have unlocked all the various skills of Jesse, it almost makes the player feel like a god capable of flying, of creating shields, of controlling the mind of opponents, of levitating. objects, not to mention all the possibilities of fire offered by the service weapon. An unassailable title under this front which however presents one poor characterization of the enemies, a certain repetitiveness in the settings and a weak central plot. All problems - if you want - typical of metroidvania, a genre that Control carries in its three-dimensional universe. To justify it all, however, there is a boundless lore made up of censored documents, recorded tapes, old videos and many other files that Remedy has hidden in the shadows of the gigantic brutalist structure, known as Oldest House, in which the entire game is set. Control's lore is so powerful and full of meaning that it provides depth not only to the game's story but to that of other Remedy titles as well.

It is precisely in this context that it fits Alan Wake, a game with a canceled sequel that was only bought back by its author earlier this year. In the 10 years that have passed since its release, Sam Lake has always shown that he does not want to abandon the project and by playing Control this intention is immediately evident given the amount of information that can be found on Alan Wake. It almost seems that Lake wanted to say to the player "Alan is still here, he is still the center of everything". These files, in fact, do not seem inserted as a classic easter egg, indeed, if we consider that Control is told for the most part by its lore it is clear how these documents are an essential part of the game, indeed of the games. In fact, Control seems to be conceived to be something more than a self-contained story, rather it looks like a connecting title as if it were the central piece of a gigantic puzzle that gives meaning to the whole figure, of which however many other pieces are missing. Some of them are part of the past, but many others we will see in the future.

AWE (Alan Wake Escape?)

Here then is that after the previous DLC The Foundation - always included in the season pass and which literally delves into the depths of the Oldest House - AWE arrives, a DLC dedicated to definitively putting Control and Alan wake in direct contact (as if they were not already linked by an indissoluble plot of alternative realities).

The development is quite similar to what we saw in The Foundation: Jesse receives the usual calls from the Red Phone only this time it is not The Council but the writer Alan Wake making them (played as always by actor Ilkka Villi). The man - after having disappeared in 2010 in the town of Bright Falls in events still unclear and considered an AWE (Altered World Event) by the Agency - seems to be trapped in a sort of darkness from which he is still looking for a way to escape. Jesse will be informed by Alan that the Investigative Section of the Agency, an entirely new area accessible from the Central Executive elevator.

The adventure will follow the events of Dr. Emil Hartman, one of Alan Wake's secondary characters, who after being arrested by the Agency for a whole series of crimes that you will gradually discover, ended up wreaking havoc in the investigative sector by revealing himself for what it really is, so much so that the sector has been sealed and it is remembered in the documents as one of the darkest pages of the Agency.

And Alan? On the narrative front of AWE there is everything about his wife Alice Wake, Dr. Hartman, the Anderson brothers - to whom the wonderful easter egg hidden in the song Take Control is related - and all the events of Bright Falls but Alan is not there, or rather he is seen in a couple of videos and in some phone calls, but then disappears again leaving disappointed until the end when he hits with the announcement of an AWE to Bright Falls. A sequel to the 2010 game? Or some other title that will have to do with Alan Wake again? At the moment it is not known yet it seems that Sam Lake has given Alan the task of guiding the player in the narrative universe of Remedy. A world made of darkness and light, of time travel and paradoxes, of altered objects and alternative realities, a world where perhaps it is Alan's pen that, to find an end, will give life to multiple beginnings. On the other hand, it is the writer himself who at the end of his game seems to suggest to the player the meaning of everything, while he sinks into the darkness of Cauldron Lake: “It's not a lake, it's an ocean”.

AWE: the first step in the evolution of Control

AWE is not an expansion for everyone and not having played Alan Wake takes away a lot of the satisfactions of the DLC, but it can still be enjoyed if you loved the quirks of Control, indeed finally adds that something that was missing from the formula of the game. AWE can in fact be considered almost like a horror expansion of Control where there are creatures that attack in the dark and impossible to defeat if the light is not turned on first. The gameplay of Control therefore finds new life in what was the basic formula of Alan Wake and several times we will have to push Jesse into the darkness to reactivate the switches thanks to the energy cells that we have got to know well throughout the base game.

This new mechanic gives Remedy a way to build boss battles (4 in total) that are more ingenious than just dodge and shoot and in which the player will always have to look for a way to stay in the light, not only with the energy cells but also by carrying a lamp or moving the lights of the area thanks to special switches. We will also see the mechanics of light work well even in some small puzzles.

The news, however, does not end here because A new weapon shape called Adhesion is also added, one of the most interesting forms in the game that allows you to fire up to three sticky grenades and detonate them on command. This refreshes the game gunplay just enough to make it even more fun and above all explosive. By mixing the potential of adhesion with the launch, in fact, it will be possible to create explosive objects to throw at opponents.

Longevity is more or less around 3-4 hours, especially if you want to dedicate yourself to secondary activities (7 in total) here less inspired than in The Foundation and in which we find the cleaning tasks left by Ahti (already seen in the base game), but also some other interesting altered objects. The most absurd and most attractive missions of Control were in fact those that concerned these particular objects and in AWE we will even have to deal with the largest altered object registered by the Agency, a train carriage, as well as with a talking alien suit and a few other juicy secrets.

Here we are again at the end of a story that is yet another small part of a whole that we do not yet know. AWE is a blatant playable announcement from Alan Wake 2. While Control is an immense veiled announcement from Alan Wake 2, only that all the details about it are hidden in the lore, so powerful and extensive that the story of the Faden, explicit and told in the videos. , almost leaves the time it finds. It is as if in 10 years Sam Lake had done nothing but think about what follow-up to give to Alan Wake and after the loss of the IP and all the related slowdowns, a follow-up was too little, something bigger was needed, an entire universe playable alternative of which Alan Wake can be both the foundation and a small part of the whole. A perspective that changes according to the player's experience and his videogame past. A gigantic work of which Control is not the final piece, but rather the central one. A bit like seeing Avengers: Infinity War without having seen the various Marvel superhero sagas. AWE is an interesting little interlude and while it fails to put a stop to Alan Wake or fully explain the events of Control, it reopens hopes for a sequel to writer Bright Falls.

We tried the game on PS4 standard.