Alan Wake 2: The Lake Home Evaluation (PS5)

Treatment is the grasp of mixing style, tone, and magnificence. It proved it with its seminal sequel Alan Wake 2 in 2023, and continued to show it with its whimsical DLC Night time Springs earlier this 12 months. That streak continues with The Lake Home, the conclusion to the world of Alan Wake (for now no less than), which tightens the threads between the Treatment Linked Universe.

The Lake Home is nothing like its DLC predecessor, with a much more centered narrative slice of Alan Wake goodness. FBC Agent Esteves approaches The Lake Home, a Federal Bureau of Management outpost on the perimeters of Cauldron Lake. The bottom has gone quiet so it’s as much as Esteves to analyze, uncovering all method of horrors alongside the best way. This can be a slow-paced, tense, trippy, and at instances scary expertise – prepare for these bloody bounce scares – and we couldn’t put the controller down from begin to end.

The Lake Home’s narrative is actually part of the aforementioned RCU, but it surely’s additionally its personal self-contained bundle. In that twisted kind of Treatment approach, you’ll uncover sordid particulars about FBC experiments, twisted figures, and workplace dramas. Every new flooring that you just attain is thrilling but intimidating, and Treatment’s sharp potential to conjure up haunting settings hasn’t dulled within the slightest. Each time we noticed the start of painted swirls throughout the wall, it despatched a shiver down our backbone.

With 5 completely different flooring to discover, Esteves will steadily acquire entry to beforehand locked doorways, attain extra highly effective weapons, and face off in opposition to Taken enemies. The Lake Home’s contribution to this world’s pool of enemy sorts are lanky painted figures. Gurgling and shrieking their approach out of painted canvases, they’re visually distinct and spectacular, but horrifying on the similar time.

It was dealing with (or extra avoiding) these enemies that delivered to mild the fragile stability Treatment is sustaining to serve its two related properties: Alan Wake and Management. The construction of The Lake Home means it performs extra like a Management DLC than something from Alan Wake, with workplaces to scour, information to sift by means of, and even the flexibility to backtrack to earlier flooring to additional discover. But it nonetheless has that Alan Wake twang to all of it, with a extra intense deal with horror and naturally twisting environments.

The Lake Home looks like a confluence of the 2 properties, and reasonably than simply an enlargement to Alan Wake’s world, it’s bridging the hole between Alan Wake 2 and the eventual Management 2. The central story is entertaining and disturbing sufficient to warrant a playthrough alone, but it surely’s all the additional little tidbits that make the expertise, simply additional solidifying the broader Treatment world.

This additionally looks like a meatier providing than Night time Springs, though seemingly nonetheless might be accomplished in round an hour and a half. We combed by means of each workplace, cabinet, and hallway, determined for any reference or lore enlargement, which means our playtime was roughly three hours. Would we now have liked extra? After all, however we’re additionally unsure its narrative and setting wanted any longer. In that very same breath, it’s a little bittersweet figuring out that this marks the tip of Alan Wake 2, with Treatment shifting on to different initiatives. Definitely this isn’t the final we see of this universe, however The Lake Home looks like a subsequent step after we have been on the lookout for a remaining goodbye.

Lastly, simply a few weeks shy of its PS5 Professional patch, we’re pleased to report that The Lake Home remains to be a looker on base PS5. Your trusty flashlight will illuminate the manic work strewn throughout the concrete corridors, with Esteves’ coat steadily smeared with purples and blues. There have been some areas the place surfaces have been speckled with a kind of white static glitch, albeit solely in full darkness, but it surely by no means ruined the ambiance of a degree and we think about it may simply be patched out.

Conclusion

The Lake Home is an excellent serving of Treatment horror goodness, appearing as a cocktail of two franchise identities, to ship one thing that’s narratively intriguing and visually distinct. It’s a tight-knit expertise full of increasing lore and intelligent scares, and a eager reminder of Treatment’s pedigree. It’s an fascinating hyperlink within the wider world of Treatment video games too that leaves us unhappy to see this chapter finish, however ever curious to the way it will all proceed.