It’s been a wild 12 months for Remedy Entertainment. Last fall, the developer was riding high when it launched Alan Wake 2 to critical acclaim. Since then, the sequel has gobbled up awards and gotten more content, while Remedy itself has partnered with Annapurna to bring its franchises to the big screen. That whirlwind year is coming to an end, but not before one final victory lap. Alan Wake 2’s The Lake House expansion is out today, sending the horror game off in style.
It’s not just any expansion; it’s a crossover with Control that adds even more depth to Remedy’s shared game universe. Considering that all eyes are on Remedy these days, it’s a crucial link ahead of Control 2 and the series’ upcoming spinoff shooter, FBC: Firebreak. Ahead of today’s launch, Digital Trends spoke with director Kyle Rowley and DLC lead writer Clay Murphy about the project and how it fits into Remedy’s ever-expanding world. The team explained the balancing act of bringing another franchise into Alan Wake 2 while also making something that feels like it’s still part of that base experience.
“We’re looking at the world of Control through the lens of Alan Wake 2,” Rowley says.
From Annihilation to Alien
During a preview event, Remedy showed off 10 minutes of The Lake House to press. In the slice, Agent Estevez of the Federal Bureau of Control, enters the DLC’s titular Lake House, which has previously been referenced in Alan Wake 2. It’s a research space created by the FBC to study Cauldron Lake and its supernatural occurrences. And right from the jump, it’s very clear that it belongs to both Alan Wake’s and Control’s world. When Estevez walks in, we get a little bit of the brutalist architecture that made Control so distinctive, but with an eerie Pacific Northwest looming out the windows.
The links between franchises only tighten the deeper she gets. There’s a hammy live-action video in the lobby featuring a couple of scientists explaining the research station’s function, not unlike the videos found in both games. When she takes an elevator downstairs, the lights go off and harsh red ones flip on as we go into full survival horror mode. The walls are suddenly swallowed up by colorful slime and Estevez has to poke through the dark to find clues as to what’s going on. It very much looks like Alan Wake 2, but Rowley explains where Control’s DNA comes into play.
“If you play Control, there are a lot of documents to find that tell a lot of the story,” Rowley tells Digital Trends. “I feel like our density of narrative objects in The Lake House is quite comparable to Control to a certain extent, even compared to what we had in Alan Wake 2. So there’s a lot of cool little nuggets to find about the inner workings of the FBC, whether that’s emails or dossiers on what they’ve been doing there, so we’re bringing a lot of the world of Control through that exploration content.”
After a bit of searching, the horror really kicks in. Lanky creatures peel off the walls, as if they were perfectly camouflaged by the colorful wallpaper. Before Estevez takes a shot at them, she tries to follow FBC procedure by reading them their rights. They don’t listen, so the bullets fly. It’s a funny little moment, but a functional one too. For Saga Anderson, the FBI agent at the heart of the base game, the supernatural terror of Bright Falls was new to her. To Estevez, this is business as usual. The Lake House plays with that dynamic through writing.
“The fun part for me is the language the different factions or groups use,” Murphy tells Digital Trends. “The way Alan talks about the Dark Place and Dark Presence is very different from how the FBC talks about these things. Using a character like Agent Estevez, who knows that lingo and knows how these things operate, to explore that side of this world is really fun as a writer. I worked on the original Control, so that kind of pseudo-scientific, paranatural babble is a lot of fun to work on.”
What stands out is how much The Lake House really feels so distinctly like a Remedy game. The studio has never been shy about pulling inspiration from other media, with games like Alan Wake firmly indebted to Twin Peaks and TV shows like it. Even the sequel took clear cues from True Detective to build its FBI procedural. It feels like Remedy is more confident about its own voice and visual language here, building from its own world instead of outside media. That’s not to say the influence isn’t there, though.
“For this particular expansion, when we were looking at the horror and how to make it feel different … We were looking at, for example, Annihilation,” Rowley says. “We were trying to make things scary, but not just revert to the default of dark and black. How can we use color in a slightly more interesting landscape? So, we’re looking at pop culture and how different movies and TV shows have used their visual language to get across specific emotions.”
“The reference for me for this one was actually Alien,” Thompson adds. “Claustrophobic space. These are all people at their job. That’s the thing to remember when writing this. Everyone’s on the clock. People showed up today and they got dressed for work and this is their job!”
Those aren’t obvious touchpoints at first glance, but each shows how skilled Remedy has become at combining its inspirations with its own world to create something all its own. The Lake House doesn’t just feel like a send-off for Alan Wake 2, but like the final piece that really locks down what a Remedy game in 2024 looks and feels like. If nothing else, that should get you even more curious about where we’re going next.
Alan Wake 2: The Lake House is available now.