Remedy Connected Universe: A Full Series Retrospective

remedy is an interesting company I've always enjoyed their games they make interesting projects with unique worlds and great characters they have an ability to craft a universe that feels massive and has a lot going on they hit their first big success with Max Payne but after that remedy decided to set their sights elsewhere they began possibly unknowingly at the time crafting a shared Universe between their games these connections wouldn't be revealed for quite a while and I still don't think that we've fully seen what remedy has in store for these games aside from that they also just make great experiences most of their games are top-notch and the ones that aren't still deserve to be given a glance because they at least have interesting aspects to them that's what I'd like to do today I want to dive deep into the remedy shared Universe I'll be taking a look at three main games Alan Wake Quantum break and control we'll talk about each of these games in depth their story background found lore mechanics gameplay and everything in between while we look at each game we'll also talk about some of the other media relating to those games like tie-in books graphic novels and even a prequel series I'd like to see how the universe connects and possibly where it's going to end up in the future if you enjoy the video don't forget to like And subscribe because it does help my channel out a lot so I can keep making videos like this you can also support the channel on patreon where I post longer versions of some of the full series retrospectives some scattered text post updates and early access to my videos you can follow me on Twitch as well where I stream games that I'm not currently reviewing spoiler alert for Alan Wake Quantum break and control Hey Dad it's me your favorite son and today I'd like to talk about the games in the remedy shared universe Alan Wake was developed by remedy entertainment it was directed by Marcus Maki and written by Sam Lake Miko rautelati and Petri yarveletto also please forgive my terrible pronunciation of these Finnish names back in October of 2003 remedy had just shipped their absolute Masterpiece Max Payne 2 the fall of Max Payne the team had taken some time away from the crunch of that development and once they were back in the studio they got to work on a new slate of ideas after going through multiple Concepts they landed on something interesting the concept for Alan Wake the early ideas for the game were to make a game with a deeper narrative than the Max Payne series Lake and his team were influenced by things like Stephen King novels and the show Twin Peaks the original idea included an episodic format for the game almost as if it was a television show Allen was supposed to be the main character a writer who finds himself in a supernatural town where his words have come to life to attack him the team wanted to get as far away from Max Payne as they could not because they hated the series but because as creatives they wanted change this meant moving away from Payne's story structure as well instead of making a linear narrative remedy decided to make an open world game allowing the player to explore a free and open environment they had even developed tools to Aid them in this task the team had to create a new engine from the ground up and created a system that would develop land and terrain quickly designating areas that were saved for roads or paths one of the original ideas was also to have a day and night cycle this mechanic would connect with the game's themes as well aligning conceptually the original idea was closer to something we'd see in a Modern Survival horror game during the daytime hours you would leave cover and head out into the wild collecting resources to be able to power generators or protect yourself at night Blake found this idea difficult though When developing a story it was hard to craft a narrative around this gameplay Loop one of the early ideas was that the town the game takes place in bright Falls would have had an active volcano that was about to erupt leaving the town empty and evacuated so far development wasn't going great and the team was having tons of trouble running into many issues with tech and story alike they had yet to secure publishing so they showed the game off at E3 2005 to try and get the attention of some prospective Publishers out there Microsoft game studios stepped in as a publisher and saw that remedy was struggling greatly they tried to help the team but they were drifting further and further off course and they were missing deadlines running out of time the whole team's was low they felt upset with the work that they had been doing they also felt a massive amount of pressure because this was their first venture outside of the first success the team had ever seen in that of Max Payne they had to refocus management and create a team specifically to go through each aspect of design and cut what wasn't working this is where the combat was drastically overhauled the game became what we see today fighting enemies with the light and dark aspects safe havens and most importantly the decision was made to make the game a linear narrative this fixed a lot of issues for the team especially with being able to create a cohesive Story the team had already done so much work on the map for Alan Wake so they decided to take the open world and chop it up to create linear levels this may have been an incredibly unorthodox approach to designing a world but it worked out very well it created a sense of cohesion in the world world and looking off in the distance seeing other areas and landmarks makes the places we inhabit feel real Alan Wake was meant to be an every man almost the exact opposite of Max Payne he was a writer not an action hero this was supposed to be reflected in the gameplay that Alan couldn't fight like Max could the enemies in the game were meant to be different as well and strange the team took the concept art for these monsters and poured water over them to make them look a bit off once the large shift in development happened things started to go much more smooth in August of 2009 six years after the release of Max Payne 2 the game was announced as finished and undergoing final polish Alan Wake was released on Xbox 360 on May 14 2010 and on Microsoft Windows on February 16 2012. a few notes before we get into things there are only two versions of Alan Wake the original version that was released in 2010 and 2012 and the remastered version that was released in 2021. this remastered version upgrades the visuals and wraps the DLC content into one package but honestly as far as changes go that's about it the game functions very similarly to the original version the biggest change is probably Alan wake's model it's made to look closer to the actor that his look is based off of ilka villi but the environmental upgrade is barely noticeable unless the footage is viewed side by side I played back through the PC version after I had already finished my remastered playthrough and had to double check if I somehow got an upgrade to the remaster there were also some QR codes in the original Island wake these were mostly jokes that led to certain sites that had funny gifts and such here they lead to YouTube videos unlisted on remedy's channel that are visions of Alan Wake from the 2019 game control don't worry we'll get there overall I think that the lack of changes to Alan Wake is actually a good thing we'll talk a bit more about this opinion throughout the video but the fact that remedy has stood by this game rather than let it fall to the flood of remake culture speaks to its validity and the purpose of some of the game's elements also in my opinion if you decide to pick up Alan Wake because of this video just buy the PC version it's incredibly cheap on Steam and the very slight graphical upgrade probably isn't worth your extra money I also want to point out that I did do multiple playthroughs of Alan Wake the first was on a normal playthrough to get the main story and introductory experience that one would have when playing the game I also played through the DLC on this run I played through about half of the game again on easy to grab a few trophies and then finally played the game through a second time fully on nightmare difficulty this is because Alan Wake has some very important Collectibles that are hidden behind nightmare difficulty these Collectibles don't just influence trophies or rewards they are actually important to the story overall I then also went back and played the game again on PC Alan Wake begins with a narration Stephen King once wrote that nightmares exist outside of logic and there's little fun to be had in explanations they're antithetical to the Poetry of fear in a horror story the victim keeps asking why but there can be no explanation and there shouldn't be one this short voice clip is incredibly important of course it does something incredibly simple it establishes Alan Wake our main character as a writer the unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest and is what we'll remember in the end my name is Alan Wake I'm a writer this statement I am a writer is almost redundant we can basically infer that wake is a writer from the previous statement there's almost a sarcastic humor in it right from the beginning but why this focus on explanations this quote from Stephen King explanations are antithetical to the Poetry of fear and there's little fun to be had in them also wake stating himself that there can be no explanation in a horror story it takes the fun out of it this is true and if Alan Wake considers itself a horror story then it follows this rule well it will not hold our hand it will not explain things to us there will be no definitive answers at the end of this story Alan States this right from the beginning but even more importantly Sam Lake remedy States this from the very beginning here's where we stand now we can play the game weight continues to narrate as he brings us into his dream now this opening on a writer's nightmare is perhaps the first Trope or evidence of the presence of an archetype that we'll find in the game we as the public have this idea about writers that they're somehow bigger than us just creatives in general they tend to take a pedestal in the public eye they are mythological creatures massive and built up their dreams seem to take on a supernatural quality to them during their sleep they seem to access some ethereal otherworldly font of knowledge that us mere mortals are not blessed with visiting Stephanie Meyer famously revealed that the idea for the Twilight books came to her in a Dream Anne Rice seemed to have some sort of prophetic prescience in Her Dream before she wrote Interview with the vampire even Stephen King himself said that there was some connection between dreams and the creative process Alan Wake takes this idea and runs with it its opening chapter takes place in one of our titular main characters nightmares he's entering a fictional town called night Springs late for something when he hits someone with his car as wake's own novels are Spilled Out Over the concrete the game begins to speak at us telling us how to play it and we begin actually controlling our character the body of the man that wake it is gone and he seeks the Solace of the lighthouse off in the distance we're quickly set upon by some sort of shadow monster that taunts us with wakes insecurities he lambasts wake for feeling as if he's God creating something number one connection as someone who wouldn't necessarily call themselves a writer but someone who has written for hundreds of hours and takes those writings and produces them into content for a living and also is currently writing this sentence in a Google document entitled Alan Wake retrospective I've seen these Shadows before I haven't seen these Shadows before because I played Alan Wake back in 2012. I haven't seen these Shadows before because Alan Wake intrigued me and it was one of the first games that I begged my mom to buy me on my Dell Inspiron laptop when I was 15 years old I've seen these Shadows before because there's one currently standing behind me saying pretty similar things the shadow Cuts deep somewhere below the abdomen but not quite at the waist some days you wake up with a flashlight and other days you don't this is one of the focal points of Alan Wake now not only as a character but as a game I wouldn't say it is the focal point but that's why we're talking about it five pages in and not 20. Alan is insecure specifically about his writing I made a video in November of 2021 almost a year and a half ago it was about the Max Payne series I wrote that video in the shadow of my most successful video at the time and still my most successful video to this day it was my first success and following it up was incredibly terrifying the pressure mounted and the Max Payne series and that video were for me about that feeling that crushing weight remedy perfectly encapsulates that feeling inside of the character of Alan Wake Sam Lake stated in his RS Technica interview that Alan Wake wasn't a reflection of his own fears about writer's block but was a manifestation of his entire team working for years on a project that was not work talking out not surfacing not going through we'll see this idea return to again and again as it's a through point for the world of Alan Wake but its feelings and emotions are truly honest and raw they also happen to be something that speak to me in an incredibly close way wake makes his way toward the lighthouse again learning combat when the game begins to speak directly to us and tell us how to do it wake then meets someone named clay Steward an incredibly important figure that we'll come back to in what will probably feel like years he helps Alan get inside the cabin and is then killed by one of the strange Shadows outside Alan is attacked by some massive Force while inside the cabin and damaged we're greeted by a white light who tells us to heal ourselves underneath the Street Lamp he tells us something incredibly important something that we won't understand for quite some time did not know ing foreign where waves are both Wilder and more serene to its Port something to reports I've been do you understand no and then he teaches us how to fight the Crux of Alan wake's combat system which will get into more in depth in a moment is all about light and darkness we talked about this in the development section of the video and this was a Core theme throughout the entirety of the game's Rocky development the theme persists in the final narrative that saw a release before we can damage enemies and defeat them we have to shine a light on them knocking away a sort of Shield that they have then we can shoot them with a weapon and damage them we're given some flares and eventually wake runs as fast as he can from a raging tornado of darkness and barely makes it into the safety of the lighthouse but as soon as he does he's told to wake up sleeping in his car Alan and his wife are on a barge heading across the water into the town of bright Falls Allen hasn't had the greatest last few months as we'll learn Alan hasn't been able to follow up his recent success with a new title and this has caused a great strain in his relationship The Strain isn't just in his relationship with his wife Alice but also himself we'll also learn that Alan has been lashing out and had some problems in the media this is kind of a big trip for the couple because it's finally their chance to get away from it all to relax to be away from the stresses and maybe Alan can find a way to break down that Dam that's preventing his creative juices from flowing on the barge we meet one of the other two people on the ship Pat main who is a local radio host he asks Alan for an interview but he adamantly denies it and actually kind of a rude way look Mr Maine I'm on vacation in fact I'd appreciate it if we could keep my being here just between the two of us there's one other person on the barge someone we don't talk to but that's not important because Barry Allen's manager calls him he's hounding his client to make sure he isn't having any problems in the small town Allen heads into the local Diner to meet a man named Stuckey who is supposed to give him the key to the cabin he and his wife will be staying in inside the diner he meets a woman named Rose who is a massive fan of wake's novels he also meets a local park ranger named Rusty two older brothers named Tor and Odin Anderson and a strange woman named Cynthia Weaver who folks around town called the lamp lady this beginning section is really our brief but detailed introduction to the town of bright Falls we'll have a few more sequences that aren't action involved where we actually get to simmer in the environment the sights sounds and dialogue that make up this special place in the world but this is the first big one the town already feels pretty familiar though doesn't it that's because it is now of course this is the every town America Trope the small town that most people who have never experienced it dream of living in a quiet community with old era problems simple issues and simple lives every person seems to fill their role in this system it's a fine balance and it works like an efficient machine seemingly giving everyone the best lives they could ever want the classic foil to this is disrupting this balance introducing some element to shake things up and change this for the better but this isn't just the archetypical representation of a small town in America bright Falls is also heavily inspired by the Town of Twin Peaks if you aren't familiar Twin Peaks is a television show created by David Lynch and Mark Frost it was a show that established this same sort of idyllic small town a simple place with simple people I except that was just the surface because underneath everything was much more complex than you could ever imagine Twin Peaks presented itself as a murder mystery set in a Backwater American town but it wasn't just a murder mystery because after a bit of watching the metaphysical esoteric and all-around strange begins to creep in this is what in my opinion makes the show truly great that there are many moments across its relatively short run time where we have almost no idea what's going on at first glance some of the appeal in watching the show is trying to solve the mystery but the Stephen King quote from the beginning of Alan Wake describes the situation aptly explanations are antithetical to the Poetry of fear and there's little fun to be had in them in my opinion this quote shouldn't just stretch itself to horror it should grow its ambition a little Twin Peaks may not be horror though you could certainly make the case that it is consider the first episode for example that has almost a half an hour of people just screaming with grief sadness and Agony it's an existential hell to watch regardless some of the fun of Lynch's work is realizing that there may not be a concrete explanation to exactly what is happening on the screen before you and that's okay this isn't to say don't interpret this is to say that this media could possibly act as a litmus test for your own personality the way you view it could be some sort of reading reflective of your own inner self but how does this fit into Alan Wake Alan Wake Styles itself as Stephen King again the game quotes him at the very beginning and in most interviews you find with the developers Lake and Co will normally first list Stephen King as an inspirational reference before anything else and is Stephen King here sure but I think that Stephen King is here in much more of a bird's eye view a General top-down approach to use an obligatory food metaphor if Stephen King is the chocolate ganache on top of the cheesecake then lynches the sugar baked into it the game not only in concept is littered with references to Twin Peaks the aforementioned Diner is very similar to the Double R Diner from that show Rose herself the waitress that works there is also similar to Shelley Johnson who works at the Double R the lamp lady Cynthia Weaver is clearly a reference to the log lady from Twin Peaks an FBI agent named Nightingale will show up later who is the direct opposite of the FBI agent from Twin Peaks Dale Cooper we hear about his character in a manuscript page that we find later Nightingale doesn't want to be in bright Falls Cooper is happy to be in Twin Peaks Nightingale doesn't like trees or coffee Dale Cooper loves both Nightingale wanted to turn his car around and drive until he ran out of of road or booze Cooper wants to figure out what's going on in Twin Peaks mirror Peak a later location of the game is a direct reference to the name Twin Peaks there's some doppelganger stuff in the later parts of this story which is heavily referenced in season two of Twin Peaks and followed up on heavily in season three even the shadow men themselves resembled The Woodsman from Twin Peaks the return though that one is in a direct reference as season 3 of Twin Peaks hadn't been released by the time Alan Wake was given to the world the mini-series prequel to The Game entitled bright Falls even has a song titled Northern passage which was the original title of Twin Peaks but it's not just enough to explain these surface level references in the game Easter eggs are one thing a possible homage to a previous material but is Alan Wake lynchian the term lynchian itself is incredibly overused and most probably don't even understand what it really means the word was actually accepted into the Oxford dictionary in 2018 along with tarantino-esque kubrikian and bergman-esque which are all just hilarious to use seriously in general conversation in an ID article titled how lynchian became the most overused phrase on the planet Emma Madden recalls an overheard conversation at a bus stop where a man asked his friend if a rainbow in a puddle on the street from some traffic lights look to lynchian his friend replied why the [ __ ] does everything have to be lynchian that's just some oil on the road Dave but what even is lynchian we should probably know what it is if we're going to determine if Alan Wake is it David Foster Wallace is the foremost descriptor of the term lynchian and possibly the most quoted surrounding it it's hard to get outside of his definition even if it is probably the best Wallace said in the Charlie Rose interview that lynchian was something about the unbelievably grotesque in a union with the incredibly banal in this interview Wallace was referencing an article that he wrote when he was allowed to visit the set of Lynch's next film Lost Highway in the article David Lynch keeps his head which is still a fantastic read to this day Wallace says an academic definition of lynchian might be that the term refers to a particular kind of irony where the very Macabre and the Very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's Perpetual containment within the latter specifically in this article and the Charlie Rose interview Wallace references Dahmer as being very lynchian specifically the fact that he stored human heads in his fridge next to normal everyday items like chocolate milk the juxtaposition of a commonly purchased product next to something so foul and inherently violent is lynching in Twin Peaks specifically the idyllic Town of Twin Peaks set against the grisly murders and investigations the crime and gallivanting is lynchian so with these examples and definitions in hand is Alan Wake lynchian well no not really there really isn't anything Macabre or grotesque in Alan Wake Alan Wake is very much a representation of multiple different genres of the supernatural the psychological uh Pastiche of the genres Alan Wake prominently features Birds does that make it hitchcockian Alan Wake has a writer as the main character does that make it kingian Alan Wake has its main character hit a man when traveling into a spooky town when we first see him does this make him toyama-esque Alan Wake is definitely inspired by all of these things but it isn't really doing what these previous pieces of media have done it's take taking very small elements from all of these things and making something incredibly new and interesting Alan Wake generally focuses on telling a meta narrative which we'll get to in a bit but its focus is taking multiple ingredients and stirring them into its massive cauldron to create some new sort of potion one intoxicating and delicious there's also the argument that Twin Peaks was half David Lynch and half mark Frost and honestly that's a subject for a video in and of itself Alan heads to the back of the restaurant to find Stucky on his way he can play a song for the Anderson Brothers on the jukebox and the lamp lady will tell him not to go into the dimly lit hallway of course we go into the dimly lit hallway and before we can talk to Stucky we talked to a Woman in a Black Veil who gives us the keys to the cabin and says that she'll be bi later to ensure that we've settled in after we head out and reunite with Alice we see Stuckey leaving the diner with the key to the cabin that we rented this leaves us with a big massive question who was that woman and where are our hero and his wife headed Alan does some more narration elaborating on his writer's block he hasn't been able to write a word in two years the two arrive at cauldron Lake which holds a small island called diver's aisle a beautiful place set in the middle of the water surrounded by mountains and beautiful Vistas the power is off inside and we're forced to turn on a generator to get the power running Allen's goal with this trip is to relax and forget about work but that's not necessarily what's going to happen back inside Alice has a surprise a typewriter and some fresh paper she tells Alan about a local Dr Hartman who specializes in helping artists Alan lashes out of about this infuriated he tries to leave the island but trips outside when he hears Alice scream he heads back inside to find the railing broken and he Dives in the water just as quickly as this happens Alan wakes up in his car wrecked hanging halfway off of a mountain Allen's phone is dead he's stranded in the middle of the woods in a place that he doesn't know on a dark and foggy night he decides to head for the nearest light source a gas station close by heading through these Woods Allen comes upon some pages pages from a manuscript that he had written it was called departure this is the name that Alan had planned to use for his next book but the scary part is he had never gotten around to writing departure so who has written this this is a large part of Alan Wake its story its collectible system its hidden narrative the manuscript Pages these are small glowing pages that we find in various places throughout the game they usually are a short piece of writing describing some brief scene the scenes described aren't just from some narrative that Alan planned to write they are coming true in real life these events can be ones that already happened ones that are happening or ones that haven't yet happened Alan stays clueless for most of the game about what's really going on that he wrote These pages and that he has brought these Horrors to life in the real world that's not really the big twist though there isn't really a huge massive twist in Alan Wake to be honest it's pretty open about what it is it isn't trying to trick you but the story is at once about a writer trying to survive his own story that he's already written trying to figure out how to get out of this story that he's already written but the story is also about that same writer writing himself in into that story obviously the Whos and the whats and the where's are something we will get to in time but this is the focal point it is of grave importance that we understand this early so we can provide examples of this moving forward in my opinion Alan Wake is really about how we interact and interface with media whether that be books films TV shows albums or video games it's worth noting here as well that every medium is equally represented in Alan Wake a myriad of references to an influential television show and different iconic films novels take up large real estate in The Game's plot and music plays an incredibly important role in the story which we'll get to but I believe it speaks to more than anything the audience of the media that it currently is a video game Brendan Keough and his expert examination of the way that we interact with video games a play of bodies how we perceive video games says this if a video game is to be textually experienced that experience is perceived through the bodies that come together to mediate and determine some things about the other this is Possible only if both the human player and the video game work are from the very start understood as interconnected neither coming before the other but each constituting the other in ongoing processes to play a video game is both to perform and to consume both to act and to spectate both to experience and to interpret this is true of all video games and I'm not here to restate this thesis for you if you'd like a longer explanation of this read the book but I think Alan Wake is about this very topic wake is a writer who writes a manuscript full of things that haven't happened yet they involve him then he lives out these events wake is both the player and the game himself wake is playing the video game perceiving the story while he himself also experiences the events this game more than most I've ever seen through its story articulates this very point to a t i take this game as a metaphor for writer's block sure but more than anything else I think it truly explores the relationship between the player and the video game itself while also making sense as a cohesive narrative we'll see more of this as we continue throughout the story and Things become clearer wake stumbles Upon A logging camp and finds Stuckey overcome with some sort of Shadow some dark Haze wielding an ax and speaking strange wake takes Refuge inside of a nearby trailer but Stucky attacks he drives drives a bulldozer into the small building and wake jumps out just in time we're then confronted by two loggers having our first taste of combat outside of a dream before we get any deeper into the narrative I should talk about the way we fight these enemies in Alan Wake the enemies in Alan Wake are called the taken there are two other types of enemies the poltergeists a possessed previously inanimate object and the birds outside of these three enemy types there isn't anything else to fight in the game there is some variety in the way that enemies are presented slightly different enemy types larger or smaller taken enemies with more or less Health but for the most part that's it but don't get me wrong I don't even say that as some sort of veiled criticism I think keeping it simple actually works in this scenario the enemies themselves represent Darkness as a theme what they reflect is actually more Sinister insecurities warped versions of daily routine and in her desire Unleashed if the taken are Darkness then what do we fight them with the only thing we can light our main weapon in the game is a flashlight but we also have real weapons like shotguns hunting rifles and revolvers but like I said before we have to first get rid of The taken's Shield before we can attack them we don't only do this with the flashlight though environmental lights can be used flares flash bangs any sort of light source that we can find the concept for combat in general is genius it's very simple very stripped back also arming us with something that isn't traditionally a weapon but is traditionally used in horror games is incredibly clever if this was a traditional horror game or any game taking place mostly in the dark then we'd have a flashlight anyways we might just not be able to control it as well and it might just not be as useful so make it useful so most combat follows this Loop enemies attack we take down their Shields with a light source and we fire away it's very simple very stripped back but there's also some depth here as well we have to deal with Resource Management first and foremost ammo isn't endless sure we're not always running out of bullets but it's not exactly in Surplus either this doesn't only apply to bullets it applies to batteries as well batteries are used to recharge the flashlight in a pinch the flashlight will recharge itself if we don't focus it with the left trigger but this can take some time and in the middle of a battle this can be tense we don't have to focus the flashlight to burn down the enemy's Shield though we can just shine it on them not using any of our battery gauge which is much more efficient also aiming down our flashlight for just a second stuns the enemy so quickly aiming the flashlight and conserving as much battery power as possible is ideal although it isn't required all of the time the system is simple at first but mastering it is a little more difficult the whole system overall just represents Alan as a character in general Allen was meant to be the opposite of Max Payne like we talked about before Max was a cop who took pills and drank to relieve his pain Allen is a writer who is stuck on his next novel Max was jumping through the air in slow motion dispensing with multiple goons at once Allen is barely getting out of the way of enemies and making it through the woods using flares this couldn't be more of a step in the other direction if they tried because they did try but this is reflected in the combat system as well it's not exactly easy to dispense with these enemies and Alan isn't the PowerHouse that Max was he can't take many hits he can easily get caught in the hands of the taken and be dead within a few attacks if we make two mistakes in an encounter it can mean the end if we're unlucky now I do like the combat system overall it's Simplicity is welcome its depth of Mastery is interesting what it represents for the story and the theme of the game is great but it does have its flaws I think the biggest flaw is probably it's Dodge stunning enemies with the flashlight is one of two ways we have of slowing attackers down when they charge the other is to dodge we can't always use the flashlight because frankly we just need some space the enemies might be too close but the Dodge itself feels kind of terrible to use it's a chunky kind of Dodge seeing Adam ducking down and moving away but its timing seems to need absolute Precision for it to work well if we miss this dodge we are punished heavily like I said before getting hit by even a normal enemy can take half of our health bar away this can become pretty annoying pretty quickly and really the only resolution is just to get better now of course looking at this through the frame of the character that is Alan Wake could give this some context even the developer said that Alan was supposed to be in every man someone who wasn't an action hero but that he develops into one over time maybe this development involves the player's own skill and learning the system overall also I just want to say I'm not claiming that this game is incredibly difficult I maybe died four or five times during my entire normal difficulty playthrough but those times that I did die it just felt like there wasn't much else I could do after my first mistake overall I think this system is good albeit a bit repetitive it works for this game and what it's trying to do we find a manuscript heading down the hill that details Rose's intense feelings for Alan another one references Barry wheeler Allen's manager and his worry for Alan being far away and unresponsive and another that details Alan actually finding the pages Alan is finding a page written by himself that predicts and foretells the fact that he would be living this very moment we make it through the woods and eventually come upon another logging site this is where we Face Stuckey who actually teleports around a little bit and goes invisible making it harder to trap him with our light we quickly dispense with him though right after this we find a manuscript page that talks about Stucky being engulfed by the darkness in his garage we get inside the gas station and find a TV that shows Alan raving like a madman in the room with the typewriter he finds a phone and calls the sheriff's station as the sheriff Sarah breaker shows up she suspects vicious of Allen especially when he says that he and Alice were staying on an island in cauldron Lake considering the fact that there is no Island on cauldron Lake she takes Allen there and he realizes she's not lying there is no cabin on the lake Alan Wake is structured like a television show with each chunk of the game being broken up into an episode this doesn't do much in practice other than create a distinct cut where the episode ends and where it begins the game also makes sure to show us a previously on segment before starting each episode to catch the viewer up on what happened just in case they missed something the structure fits but one of the best things that Alan Wake does is have a credit song for each episode each of these songs are incredibly important and I'd like to talk about them as we go through the story they reflect exactly what is going on at the moment in the story sometimes in lyrics and sometimes in tone it honestly reminds me of something like the Canadian film mommy this was noted at the time for having a soundtrack of licensed music that not only fit the period and tone but also just felt like it was somehow describing exactly what was going on in the story it was a fantastic use of music and I think Alan Wake does this with its end credits songs unfortunately I can't use copyrighted music on YouTube or you'd be hearing the songs right now if you'd really like to see the version of the video where these songs are played then you can go to the patreon if it doesn't matter that much to you then watch on the song that's used at the end of episode 1 is in Dreams by Roy Orbison Orbison saw the peak of his career in the 60s and had a comeback in the 80s this song came out in 1963 and was actually a rarity for orbison's career at the time he co-wrote a lot of his tracks with Joe melson and Bill Deez in dreams was written solely by Orbison it was one of his most popular songs and follows the trend of orbison's emotional ballads the concept of this track surrounds Orbison singing to his love who he's lost she's gone he can no longer see her for whatever reason and he can only see her in dreams hence the title of the song the peak of the song hits during the second half when Roy starts belting he has that beautiful lilting voice that was common during his era the song itself clearly specifically references Alan's situation Alice is lost she's gone he has no idea how to find her not only that but it's almost as if his entire trip in bright Falls is gone as well he has no idea what's happening he's finding pages of writing that is seemingly his but he doesn't remember it but that doesn't matter as much as Alice because his love is gone and he'll only see her in dreams as we begin episode 2 we jump back two years to Alan and Alice's apartment in New York City Allen had just finished writing his final book in his famous series about detective Alex Casey the last book was called sudden stop the final in a series of crime novels that made Alan a household name we can see two manuscript Pages here pages from Alex Casey books and it's not Alan narrating them it's Alex Casey but Alex Casey is voiced by none other than James McCaffrey Max Payne himself thinking in metaphors again was gone only a sour taste remained of the kiss the killed me that's right Alan is essentially the writer of Max Payne at least in this universe Max Payne is actually a crime novel series and not a video game this is evidenced by the two pages that we find in Alan's apartment the first describes events from the first Max Payne game and the second from well the second Max Payne game even going so far as to address the Poets of The Fall Song late goodbye in the document uh refer to my two and a half hour Max Payne video for the importance of this Alice has finished the cover photos for Alan's new book and the power in the apartment goes out this is where we learn something incredibly important about Alice she's afraid of the dark not just a silly joking I'm scared at what's at the end of the hallway afraid but genuinely afraid Alan tells Alice about a device that he had when he was a child called the clicker it was a switch that would activate a magic light and scare the monsters away clearly this is meant to make Alice feel better but its importance will be realized throughout the game Alice's fear also happens to tie into our overall theme and narrative as well light versus dark Alan is back at the police station being checked over by the doctor he wasn't being honest with him about what he'd seen because he knew he would be written off as a lunatic we find a manuscript page that depicts Alice seeing a Woman in a Black Dress the sheriff Sarah wants to know what happened but Alan again can't be honest he gets his phone back and answers a call it's Alice but she's quickly taken off the phone because someone has her captive the kidnapper wants Alan to head to the back of the police station where we find Alice's driver's license a manuscript Page Reveals part of Allen and the kidnappers meeting Barry who has just arrived in town calls Alan Dr Hartman wants Allen to come stay at his Retreat for struggling artists and he reveals that he was the one who invited Alice to Bright Falls just before Alan socks him in the face Barry then finally steps in hey nobody move get your hands off of my client who are you I'm Barry wheeler his agent Barry's an interesting character everything in Alan Wake has been pretty serious up to this point for both the characters and the audience Alan has lost his wife he was trapped in a nightmare he's been fighting monsters ones that seemingly no one else knows about he's alone and feeling absolutely insane in a town that he doesn't know but here comes Barry a Shining Light in the darkness a friend not only is Barry the comic relief in the story constantly quipping and tossing witty or corny lines into the conversation he also represents something familiar for Alan he's not only Allen's agent but they've been friends since they were kids they know each other very well and having him here can only make Alan feel safer his representation of a light for Alan may also be reflected in the fact that he wears a bright red jacket where most everyone else is wearing wearing dull dark neutral colors Barry and Allen had to rent a cabin so that they can meet the kidnapper at midnight and get Alice back I should note here briefly that the voice acting is of a very particular style in Alan Wake it has a very familiar sort of deadpan slightly off base line delivery it's similar to something like Silent Hill or even dare I say Twin Peaks it's not as unnerving as the classic horror games but it definitely gives us a slightly unsettling feel especially the way that Matthew peretta voices Alan Wake no look Barry I'm missing a week and someone's got Alice and everything's just what it sounds like when you say stuff like that he has this very particular delivery it evokes a writer reading their own work aloud it's very strange and it's not enough to just say this is bad voice acting like it was something that they fell into Max Payne didn't have have a voice acting style like this it wasn't unnerving in how off it was also Matthew peretta is in another remedy game called control as a completely different character and actually gives an amazing performance Alice in particular has a very strange delivery that makes you feel a bit uneasy whenever she's on screen I'll go fill her up while you get the key I'll pick you up here and say 15 minutes sure Alan thank you for coming here with me I love you too go on I promise to behave this could be some reflection of the dark presence infecting Alan's psyche and memories it wouldn't be able to just be localized to the town because Alice wasn't always in bright Falls it's probably nothing super important to the story it's just worth noting that the style is here Barry and Alan get the keys to the cabin from Rusty and head up to their new Temporary Home Barry stays at the cabin while Alan heads off to go meet with the kidnapper at lovers Peak here we have to head through the woods venturing again into the dark night we find a few manuscript Pages along the way telling us of the rift between Barry and Alice the relationship between Rose and Rusty and also pre-informing us that Rusty has been attacked now there are a lot of moments like this in Alan Wake moments where we'll find a page that will tell us of something we're about to find out anyways it often spoils big moments for us but why does it do this first of all Alan Wake is not very concerned with the the reveal of anything it seems to throw away all semblance of story structure in an effort to build a world and creative new narrative it seems to forego the classic setup of revealing events as the character experiences them and directly puts us in the shoes of Alan Wake the game is titled Alan awake wouldn't it be odd if we didn't experience the story exactly as he did there are a few manuscript pages that we won't find during our first playthrough but only during our second playthrough on nightmare difficulty Alan doesn't remember what he wrote so neither do we he finds out what's happening before it's happening from the experiences of himself that he doesn't remember we are the player but we are also Alan Wake the game puts this at the Forefront this idea that the immersion of us in the shoes of Allen is much more important than timely reveals or are holding back information if Alan knows it then we know it but I also don't think the game would have been furthered by taking out some of the future telling manuscript pages I don't think us stumbling upon Rusty attacked in The Visitor Center would have been better than us reading it on a page it adds to the atmosphere of the game it adds to the world when we pick up a page and hear about an event and then move forward only to see that event play out it makes us slightly nervous and slightly more curious about what's going on it's almost as if Alan is seeing a real-life film adaptation of his novel playing out in front of him where he plays the main character and he's improvising all of his lines it would be the same if we were seeing the scenes after the fact except Alan himself is also seeing these scenes after the fact they are not obscured from the main character of the story this is why Alan is both the character in the game and the player playing the game we are Alan Wake this is also perplexing to the characters of the story Rusty foresaw his own demise through that page he's just as concerned with this fact as we are when we get the power turned on we actually have to fight Rusty because he's been taken over by the dark presence heading through the woods once again making our way to Lover's Peak we can find tons of Collectibles Alan Wake has lots of things that can be picked up and ticked off a list throughout the story we can track down coffee Thermoses TVs playing different episodes of a show called night Springs radios putting out Pat Mains audio show manuscript pages of course and can pyramids that we can shoot some of these are surprisingly well hidden I think that remedy decided to utilize that open world that they had created to its full extent in certain places because there are areas where we have to go the opposite Direction up a massive Mountain just to get a thermos in a manuscript page that are totally optional halfway up the mountain I actually started to think that I was going to be greeted by an invisible wall at a certain point we can also find chests hidden throughout the world that are less of a collectible and more entirely necessary to finding good equipment they're designated by yellow painted arrows that can only be seen when light is shined on them these arrows will point to a big torch sigil usually painted right above a chest with some variety of flares flash bangs and flare guns we can also collect signs throughout the course of the game we aren't collecting them exactly as much as we are collecting the information on them they usually have some sort of historical information about the town this is interesting and from my perspective as almost a concept of Allen's story in a way like those vague small details that will be in novels just brief factoids that come up that don't really further the plot but maybe build up the town's history these all gave me that kind of vibe something a writer would put in his story to flesh out the location he was telling it in eventually during Allen's journey to Lover's Peak he rides a hanging cart that crashes into the next platform we're rescued by some helpful man who introduces us to flares which can be dropped on the ground to push back advancing waves of taken or held while walking slowly to hold off the enemies these can be incredibly useful in a pinch and can be strategically placed to prevent us from fighting whole groups of enemies if we want the game does do a strange thing where it reveals that this man whose name is Mott by the way is the kidnapper Mott was actually on the barge with us at the beginning of the game which if you were paying attention is just a massive find a lot of this information is never explicitly stated in the story though which is what makes it so genius the game begs you to find its story underneath it wants you to search out for for Clues and details not to explain its mystery necessarily but to explain the details of the story that takes place inside of that mystery the section with Mott is frustrating because he refuses to give us our gun back we're only armed with flares in the flashlight the entire time forced to break enemies Shields down while he fires away this would be fine normally but Mott is a terrible shot and misses half of the bullets that he fires out of the gun Mott reveals that he knows about the manuscript and he wants Alan to give him the whole thing so that he knows what will happen before it does wake attacks him and were flung off the platform back into the woods our ammo and guns are reset at certain parts of the game this is something that I do find a bit annoying I understand that it's probably for immersion reasons and I will say that it does work in that context it truly makes us feel like we're scrambling around to build back up in our Arsenal again and add some realism to the tale but the side effect of this is that we never really feel like we're getting stronger or better just sort of staying the same heading back through the forest we have to make it quite a ways before Barry eventually calls us again he's being attacked by some birds and we have to save him on the way we get a truck and are able to drive it through the streets to make our way back to the cabin there are multiple points in the game where we'll have access to a vehicle and can use it to travel quite an open and large area this is clearly some slight spillover from the original concept and version of Alan Wake this massive world that we were supposed to be able to explore but that just never came to fruition eventually we make it back to Barry and are swarmed by our third enemy type Ravens these will come down in packs and swoop at us they can be particularly annoying because we don't really have much time to turn and shine our light at them causing them to Veer away not only that but we can't really Dodge them either sometimes we're just forced to take a bit of damage after this Barry has finally come around on what Alan was saying he's a Believer now the next day Barry is heading to try and track down information on the kidnapper and Alan is going to write a manuscript so he can have something to get Alice back with only he still can't write a word the block is still there just then Rose calls Barry and tells him that she's found the manuscript pages except someone else is there with her and it's clear she's being controlled this is the end of episode two and here we get a lesser known song to cap off this chunk of the story haunted by Poe this song was the title track from the 2000 album of the same name Poe is actually the sister of Mark Z Daniel Lucy the writer of one of the craziest books of all all time House of leaves the album is actually a companion piece to that book in concept and a tribute to Poe's father on a side note the album is actually really good it's lyrical progression is fantastic and does some really cool things sonically across its lengthy run time it's also just an interesting Concept in general the song applies to Alan's situation though in such an oddly specific way one lyric in particular I need to get my bearings I'm lost and the Shadows keep on changing almost make you wonder if Sam lake is some kind of wandering time traveler clearly whoever was choosing these songs did a great job and lyrics can be just vague enough to impart meaning on anything when we start episode 3 Alan and Barry are being guided through the trailer park that Rose lives in Randolph is the one guiding us and a tiny little piece of information that he gives us is very important he says that the local Indians used to think that cauldron Lake was a doorway to the underworld we also notice a boat laying in the middle of the trailer park how about that it was there in the morning as if it had fallen from the sky but it would take a tornado to lift something like that we're damn lucky it didn't Crush any of the trailers huh odd Barry also got a ton of information from writings by Cynthia Weaver the lamp lady his information concerns two people Barbara Jagger a local Legend and Thomas Zane a poet that used to live in the area when we meet Rose she's similarly deadpan and gives Barry and Alan coffee that knocks them out Alan is in a dark place confronted by the same old woman who wants him to finish what he started he wakes up in a room and Rose's trailer Alan is on the TV again talking about an editor by the name of Barbara Jagger that's revised his manuscript during the writing process we find out through a page that Randolph had called the police during the hours that Alan and Barry were out we see as much when we get to the entrance of the park agent Nightingale has arrived and he begins shooting at us immediately he's definitely no Dale Cooper we have a super long run through the forest to get away from the police chasing us this is definitely one of the low points of the game in my opinion just because it goes on so long actually chapter 3 is just really long in general this one could have used some cutting up because it really wasn't necessary a manuscript page tells us that Barbara Jagger is home to some dark powerful being or presence and that it's coming after Alan at this point it's pretty safe to assume the old lady is Barbara Jagger and she's the one that houses the dark presence that's been assailing us we can also infer by this point that during the week which Alan was knocked out he wrote the manuscript that's currently unfolding in front of us this manuscript was also edited by Barbara Jagger during that time to make the dark presence more powerful and stronger we eventually see a radio tower in the distance and Alan decides to head towards it hoping to reach Pat main the radio host he met at the beginning of the game once he reaches Maine the police too have reached him Nightingale again fires his weapon without warning and wake gets away we make our way through the woods heading to a nearby train depot Alice calls Alan and says something strange after that she's gone this is where we commonly start seeing Poltergeist enemies in the game these are animated objects that were previously inanimate that begin to attack us I have to say other than being kind of frustrating to fight against the concept is actually kind of terrifying imagine a large steel great or massive metal pipe just flying through the air at high speed if it hits you in the head it's done you're dead the violent shaking of the objects is also not necessarily a pleasant sight speaking of soon after this we have to take on a bulldozer that has a similar goal in trying to smash us to Pieces we get to a car and wake travels to a nearby Coal Mine He's eventually contacted by the kidnapper who tells him he has to meet him at mirror Peak with the manuscript to get Alice back we find a manuscript detailing the relationship between Barbara Jagger and Thomas Zane we Face a possessed train and once again find wake on the TV this time musing about Thomas Zane and borrowing bits of his genius for his story wake makes his way through an old mine we solve some elevator puzzles and we find a page that lays out a scene where Tor and Odin are attacking a nurse wake finds himself at mirror Peak Mott waiting for him but Alice is nowhere to be found Mott is swallowed up by the dark presence and wake is pulled into the body of water I have to point out the Beautiful direction of the scene as Alan tumbles to the water flare in his hand a trail of smoke billowing up from above it's just absolutely gorgeous this is where episode 3 ends and with this we get up jumped the Devil by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds I also just have to point out here that aside from the music choices delivering theme and tone to the context of the situation they're also just based picks good songs all around at this point in the story Alan is definitely at a low it's the definition of the hero's Adventure make an attempt get thwarted and fall down rise back up thwart it again but here Alan has no idea where Alice is and is starting to realize the gravity of the powers that are against him up jump the Devil is a song that should be defined as the definition of feeling sorry for yourself oh poor heart I was doomed from the start doomed to play the villain's part Allen is clearly feeling very sorry for himself at this moment he feels like he's failed in every capacity even the trip that they went on in the first place race was a trip to get away from his work his troubles his fears and now the couple are in this mess and he can't get them out of it Alan wakes up at the beginning of episode 4 in Hartman's Clinic Hartman tells him that he has schizophrenia and has been at his clinic for a while suffering a breakdown after Alice's death Alan can't tell if this is real life or an apparition but he doesn't believe it Hartman takes him on a tour throughout the facilities a resort specifically made for artists with mental health issues so they have somewhere to stay and get better Hartman tries to convince Alan that Alice drowned and Alan has been making everything up Alan doesn't want to believe but the drugs that Hartman has given him are making it hard to fight off these new ideas we get to talk to the Andersons again here and they give us a manuscript page they found this one was important it was about Thomas Zane using his poems to shape reality his assistant was revealed to be Emil Hartman himself the Andersons also tell Alan to go to their farm he might find some use in a song that they used to perform when we head back to the room Alan tries to write but he can't it gets dark and there's a Ruckus a manuscript page tells us that Barry came here looking for Alan downstairs we find the source of the noise another white page prophecy come true the Andersons had hit one of the nurses with a hammer and were making their escape this provides a perfect opportunity to make our Escape as well on our way out we can do a little optional investigating and find out that Mott was actually working for Hartman the entire time Alan finds Barry here in one of the back rooms as the two try and make their escape Hartman reveals himself he tries to get Alan to join him to use the power of cauldron Lake to create something beautiful the dark presence begins to attack at this moment and it's our time to dash out of the building we make our way through the Hedge Maze and surrounding areas of the retreat once we escape with Barry the two head to the Anderson's Farm but are separated on the way when they get into an accident through the forests a manuscript page tells us that the dark presence is chained to the outline of the story it cannot move outside of it we also find out that the Anderson Brothers were free from the clinic and that they had somehow fought the taken before or at least something similar when we finally make it to the Anderson's Farm we meet Barry on their outdoor stage the Andersons were both in a very popular rock band called old gods of Asgard they had a stage on their property to perform outlandish shows the stage is outfitted with tons of pyrotechnics that can be activated and it makes the perfect place to make a last stand against the attacking shadowy forces here we have to stand our ground while waves come at us we're given ample ammo and the whole action turns into a wild Shooting Gallery it's a moment of reprieve in the game where we are actually allowed to feel incredibly powerful almost Untouchable for once the Anderson's band is playing in the background the entire time which also adds some fun to the scenario as well just an all-around badass moment in the game after this Barry and Alan make their way through the farm we have to use a viking boat as a battering ram and eventually defeat a possessed Harvester in the house Barry and Alan find the song they were looking for the poet and the Muse by the Anderson's band the lyrics Lady of the light tell them they need to find Cynthia Weaver the lamp lady the two decide to stay on the farm for the night though and they get tanked Alan has a dream one where he's an out of body Observer to the night that Alice went missing this is the largest piece of evidence pointing to what I was saying before that Alan Wake is a commentary carry on how the player and the artist to a certain extent interact with media here we are playing Alan Watching Alan discover Alice go missing but this is all happening inside of a story that Alan wrote right after this who is now watching it all unfold sure it's all very meta and can be a little hard to wrap your head around if you haven't leafed through all of the material and taken some extra time to really figure things out but the point is that the game forces us to take multiple perspectives on the same story we experience the story through just about every medium possible the video game that we are playing the television show that is Alan Wake the music that represents Alan Wake not only in its story but at the end of each episode and the novel departure that we are constantly searching for around every corner of the game's environments I Alan Wake transcends video game status it is somewhere just slightly above that it looks down upon itself as Alan looks down upon himself diving into cauldron Lake there's also another moment here one that I'm not sure was purposeful but as I watched Alan crawl out of the water I heard the voice of Barbara Jagger the dark presence herself but it was coming from within me I'd been easy prey Alice when I moved the camera I realized I was standing right where she was probably just an accidental moment but my mind began to race with different theories on whether the player themselves could be considered the dark presence the pressure from audiences for Alan to deliver another title was influencing his story and forcing him to write more and more it just goes to show how many layers this game does have when small moments make your mind real with implications you know the story has some depth we see Barbara Jagger influencing Alan after he dove into the lake she told him that Alice was dead and that he had the power to bring her back he just needed to write with Jagger's instruction of course so that's what Alan did he wrote departure a story that would come true with the power of the lake itself only it would make the dark presence more powerful as it influenced Alan during the creation of the story but Alan had written his own Escape into the story luckily so that he could get out before the dark presence was made too powerful Allen had created Thomas Zane a poet that would set himself free Zayn was how Allen got out of the cabin how he was freed and able to even get into the car crash that started off our adventures this is the end of episode 4 and with that we get another song This one is the song we heard in the game already the poet and the Muse by old gods of Asgard the band that wrote and performed this song The IRL old gods of Asgard are Poets of the Fall Mark ceresto the lead singer of Poets of the fall and Sam Lake have been friends for a very long time they began working together on Max Payne 2 with the wonderful amazing song late goodbye that was written for that game they continue to work together to this day and Poets of the the Fall have woven themselves inextricably into the remedy Universe by becoming an in-world band this song specifically was written for the game and details Thomas Zane Tom the poet and his Muse Barbara Jagger it could also be looked at as being about Alan and Alice as the two are sort of the second generation of Tom and Barbara and now to see your love set free you will need the witch's cabin key find the lady of the light still raving in the night that's how you reshape Destiny this one's relation to the game and its story is a little more obvious mostly because it was made specifically for the game Alan and Barry have been taken into the station during their drunken stupor they were arrested they're confronted by Nightingale and breaker but Alan begins to have visions the power goes out and Nightingale freaks out he grabs the manuscript page that foretells his death and he's already seen it he's grabbed by something and the three begin their escape Barry stays behind at the station while breaker and Alan make their way across the town Sarah trusts Alan who tells her of his quest to Now find Cynthia Weaver they need to make their way to the helicopter which the three of them eventually do on the way the group is separate rated again from Barry who finds his way back to them this time suited up with Christmas lights and flare guns like a light based Action Hero the manuscript Pages along the way tell us about the dark presence's frustration and trying to find wake and its goal to have him finish the story that he started after getting to the helicopter Sarah goes to touch down but the plane is attacked by births we eventually make our way to the power plant where Cynthia Weaver is she just like the log lady from Twin Peaks yells at our protagonist for taking too long to meet with her she guards a place called the well-lit room which we now need to get to Cynthia tells us quite a bit about Thomas Zane and how he woke up the dark presence in the first place Thomas wrote himself out of the world except for one remaining piece of his existence an object in a shoebox in the well-lit room it should be noted here as well that Thomas Zane is voiced by James McCaffrey who voiced Max Payne of course Alan and Cynthia are separated Barry and Sarah crashed the helicopter and all of them are chased by the dark presence the group eventually makes it to the well-lit room which looks like the best possible place to be during a taken attack we find the last remaining piece of Thomas Zane's writing in his shoebox a story from Alan's childhood the same story that Alan told to Alice his mother gave him an old light switch called the clicker that would drive away the darkness the clicker is in the shoebox the device that will let Allen save Alice this is the end of episode 5 and the song that we get for this chunk of the story is War by Poets of the Fall the real Poets of the Fall not The Poets of the Fall being old gods of Asgard the song actually wasn't written for the game it was written for the band's 2010 album Twilight Theater Lake had heard the unfinished album and chose War to be in Alan Wake the song is a bit more triumphant than previous songs it's still pretty emotional though a love song about a companion who's always been there this seems to clearly describe Alan's renewed confidence after finding the clicker ready to go fight and finally get Alice back it's also worth noting that one of the verses says turn the page I need something new also the song in general is just another Banger Poets of the Fall doesn't miss it should also be pointed out that the music video for war stars ilka Villi the man that plays Alan Wake the final chapter of the base game begins with another flashback from two years ago except this one isn't as idyllic of a life as the one we saw previously Alan is waking up with a massive hangover taking some painkillers Allah Max Payne he grabs his sunglasses and Barry left a message trying to convince Alan to leave Alice we can turn on the TV to watch Alan on the Harry Garrett show a fake talk show where he talks about his new book Sam Lake also makes an appearance on the show where he's asked to do the face and Poets of the Fall are the special guests I want to point out here the offness of all of the television shows in the world of Alan Wake Alan Wake himself is not voiced by the same person that provides his likeness wake's likeness is that of ilka villi and he's voiced by Matthew peretta right from the beginning that already gives the game a weird sort of unsettling Vibe whenever wake is on screen and speaking what the hell are you thinking man good riddance no seriously though seven years in six books is a long time he was a gloomy guy to spend all your you're working hours with and it was a good run but whenever there's a television in the game it's usually live action footage that's portrayed upon the screen within a screen these live-action characters are also over dubbed by themselves their voices playing over the already recorded real footage it provides a very unsettling uncanny valley kind of vibe to everything the TV Collectibles that we can find throughout the game usually show a television show called night Springs a play on The Twilight Zone with even a voice actor doing a very convincing Rod Serling impression the price for such a legacy is steep indeed these short episodes are actually really funny like the one about a scientist who developed a machine that would always take him to the alternate universe where he didn't die making him effectively Immortal but then the machine is unplugged and he accidentally takes his own life these shows use this dubbing effect though and honestly a lot of the time it sounds like Matthew peretta doing the voices ladies and gentlemen of the press I am Dr Barkley Colvin and I'm glad so many of you could join me here at the moorcock Institute I'm not sure if this is because this is Alan's story that he's created so he's doing the voices as well or maybe it's just a similar sounding actor regardless this uncanny dubbing is very off-putting and creates an interesting atmosphere and distinct style to the game that I just love eventually in the flashback Alice comes home and Alan is very confrontational fleshing out some more of the issues that he's gone through in the past the two plan to go on a vacation soon after this we jump back to present day and Alan needs to head back to the cabin so he can finish writing the story once he does he'll be able to fix all of this he needs to do it alone though and he leaves the group behind now that Alan has the clicker the dark presence is trying to destroy him not capture him I briefly want to talk about the genius of the flashlight as a weapon here for a moment I do think that the flashlight is a weapon even though it's just a flashlight we use it to fight the taken even though it doesn't harm them the thing itself is presented to us as if it's a sword one that a knight in shining armor would have it's Allen's Excalibur it's incredibly important and he would be nothing without it I would argue that it's more important than the guns in the game because it works within the game's theme itself the game even encourages you to use the flashlight more than the guns there's an achievement for completing this last level without using guns at all and I have to say it isn't really that difficult to do you can still use flares and flashbangs of course but challenging yourself to only use light to finish off this story really is sort of an amazing climax to the tail Alan makes his way way through the woods and faces down the dark presence itself once it's gone he jumps into The Cauldron Lake clicker in hand but wakes up in bed with Alice she's clearly not Alice though it's Barbara or the thing wearing Barbara's face trying to deceive Us in this final section we can use the light to illuminate words literally bringing the manuscript to life in front of us this is such a genius mechanic one that we'll talk about more in the DLC section since it has more bearing there Alan reveals the path forward and is eventually confronted with the dark presence it tells him that there's no use it will only find someone else but he uses the clicker on it and it is destroyed bathed in light he goes upstairs to finish the story to write the ending to departure Alan realizes that light and darkness are a balance Thomas Zane failed to write himself out of the story because he didn't realize this balance we see Alan once again began finding Alice gone when he Dives in though she exits days later and he doesn't trapped in the dark place beneath cauldron Lake Allen sacrificed himself to save the one he loved we see the residents of bright Falls celebrating deer Fest no longer plagued by Alan's story but one person looks quite suspicious Rose holding a lamp with Nightingale looking over her shoulder we jump back to Alan finishing the story and the game ends on a poignant note it's not a lake it's an ocean Allen has realized both literally and figuratively that cauldron lake is deeper than he thought he realizes it isn't just a body of water but a powerful place that he won't be able to escape from easily this was foreshadowed all the way back in episode 1 By the Light Thomas Zane himself remember this quote to exports my being Alan Wake is incredible on its own it's six episodes comprise a story that is at once unique interesting multi-layered and fantastic the final song we get for the base game is fittingly Space Oddity by David Bowie this is one of Bowie's most popular songs really his first big hit this would be the song that would Skyrocket him into super stardom the song itself tells the story of a character named Major Tom who has just embarked on a space mission he's become incredibly popular on Earth but then the mission goes wrong it's a pretty simple song released in 1969 but is still one of Bowie's best many interpretations of the song's meanings have been furthered throughout the years that the song was just a literal story about a space man Bowie himself said it was about the film 2001 A Space Odyssey some think it was a criticism of commercialism in the media and even thought to represent Counter Culture in the 60s I always interpreted it as reflecting the struggles of major Fame and the isolation it brings regardless at this point in the story Alan is Major Tom he's been lost in space he's alone floating away from home as the Earth gets smaller and smaller he's achieved his goal but at what cost but Alan wake's story did not end there and before we can wrap up talk on this game we have to talk about a few other things first Alan Wake was originally developed to be a complete story on its own and the base game really is it may not feel like it but Alan set out to complete the goal that he wanted to to save Alice the first game was meant to be season one and the team had planned some story DLC to bridge the game between season 1 and 2 which would presumably be the sequel the first of these DLC was called the signal this was a special feature rather than an episode on its own this first special begins with Alan arriving at the diner in bright Falls here the same events from the beginning of the base game play out but everything is slightly off with an odd yellow filter over the scene and voices sounding a bit demonic use a tune right now number six Alan knows that he must go to the back of the diner though and arrives in the bathroom to find Zayn talking to him through a mirror Zayn provides him with weapons and tells him to not fall deeper into this illusion he has to focus the illusion itself is the dark place the place that Alice was trapped in the place he now has to get out of When Alan finds a part of his manuscript later words begin to appear in front of him focusing on the words or shining a light on them makes items appear or events take place this is something that the DLC introduces as a new mechanic and it works perfectly this is proof enough that Alan wake's DLC is not predatory it is entirely story content that serves to bridge the gap between the story and a potential sequel also giving players an entirely new mechanic and theme is not something that Studios often do with DLC especially if it's rooted in predatory money grubbing Behavior the mechanic itself works really well and is something I would have loved to have been able to play around with a little more even though I don't think it could have stood the test of an entire game I like it but if it was the main mechanic of Alan Wake it would have gotten old pretty quick activating booms or explosions in the area to take out groups of enemies is great even setting off the word Rock to Tumble enemies away can feel satisfying one particularly clever use of this mechanic was tossing a flare down a well to activate the word whole which then blew a hole in a nearby pipe I should also note that this entire DLC plays with environments a lot better than the main game it uses a lot of the same locations as Alan Wake but plays with this dream narrative quite a lot usually environments will be warped or combined together and the whole thing actually has quite a bit of a Silent Hill 2 vibe to it jumping down holes and warping together rooms Alan gets his phone back and Zayn tells him to follow this signal otherwise he will slip deeper into the dark place eventually we meet up with a dark place version of Barry who we're joined by after activating the word friend eventually we end up in Allen's apartment Zane appears and tells him that he's doing this to himself his own mind is warping the places and creates these manifestations at this moment the TV screens that have been warning him thus far begin to attack him defeating the screens the insane version of him starts screaming Allen passes out and wakes up again in Hartman's Clinic repeating the loop as he did before he's surrounded by manuscript pages and realizes the futility of what he's doing that he really is trapped in the dark place don't worry because each special also gives us an end credit song The Signal caps off its short story with no I don't remember by Anna turnheim turnheim was a Swedish singer songwriter her songs have been featured in a myriad of television shows and even a game we've already talked about on this channel Silent Hill downpour the song that plays in Alan Wake is mostly about reflection reflecting on the past the good times that used to Grace one's life Alan is clearly spiraling at the idea that he may never be able to get out of the dark place in a Twilight Zone kind of twist wake has saved his love but they are forever apart one of them is forced to be trapped to tip the scales of balance one way or the other the second and final DLC was titled the writer it takes place directly after the previous DLC as Alan is still trying to find his way out of the dark place Alan gets through some more spooky environments and eventually talks to Zayn again he tells Alan that he has to get to cauldron Lake he must be reunited with himself or be lost to the dark presence forever he gives Alan a manuscript page that allows him to create some paths forward we have an absolutely wild platforming section here we're using floating beds as vehicles to move forward tumbling and turning houses it's kind of wild what the game's environments can rise to when asked and I kind of wish we could have gotten this interesting scenery in the main game Zane tells Alan that the dark place is home to beings that are much stronger than we can imagine Zane doesn't know how to get Alan out of the dark place or what happened to the dark presence not a good sign we eventually learned that Alan has effectively split himself in two the one in control of Alan's surroundings right now is in the cabin currently in a massive fit of insanity the Allen that we control is the rational part and the goal is to get him back in control before the dark presence can take us over Zayn tells us further that there's another Allen an evil Allen called Mr scratch that is is not actually part of Alan but was created by Him to fit into his own story yeah it's slightly confusing we start to see Twisted fantasies of Alan's imagination he Witnesses a fake conversation between Hartman and a deranged version of himself represented as a television head well let's start with the obvious the car crash untreated head trauma for all due respect to Doc Nelson but he's hardly a neurosurgeon I think that the injury has affected you more than you realize yeah I have had bad headaches he hears a conversation where Alice spews hatred for him none of it is real just part of Alan's psychosis spilling up into his reality our goal here is to get to the lighthouse one of the coolest parts of the DLC is when the lighthouse is illuminated spinning around in circles its beam will defeat enemies but we have to get rid of the rocks blocking the way when we do it blasts groups of taken in one swift Arc it's a fantastic moment and this whole climb to the top is all the greater for it Alan is almost at the cabin when this imaginary version of Barry begins to try and stop him he's upset that Alan is trying to get rid of this dream world he of course spews tons of negative remarks towards Alan that aren't actually true but reflective of this deranged version of Alan's psyche all of the insecurities that Alan projects on to his friends we have a big final boss against the fake Berry and her brothers and Hartman when they're destroyed Alan is allowed to enter the cabin Allen merges with his other self finally regaining control regaining sanity he can't make a mistake like that again if he slips out of reality he could be gone forever he finally has a new Clarity a new goal looking forward Alan starts a new manuscript a second book titled return by Alan Wake this episode is capped off with one final song the darkest Star by Depeche Mode at this moment Alan is filled with determination he has a plan moving forward he's writing a new manuscript ready to change things once again but this time he'll do it right he'll get out of the dark place and be reunited with Alice This Song speaks directly to Alan this is where Alan's story ends well sort of not really I kind of lied there's one more piece of Allen story that we have to talk about in May of 2011 a rumor began circulating that a sequel to Alan Wake was being developed this came from a LinkedIn profile for the artist altea Suarez Gata who had listed that they worked on Alan Wake too the next day a spokesperson from remedy came forward turns out that remedy was not about to announce a sequel but something from the world of Alan Wake was coming neither sequel nor DLC this turned out to be Alan wake's American Nightmare this game specifically exists to expand the world of Alan Wake but not necessarily continue the story it's possible this story could exist in some sort of alternate timeline or be an attempt by Allen to get out of the dark place nothing is certain though or confirmed it's all up to speculation the game also was not part of the recent remaster of Alan Wake so it's possible this may end up being just retconned out of the store story entirely if it was ever meant to be officially a part of it the game begins with a live action cut scene of Allen trapped in the dark place with Mr scratch his doppelganger that was talked about in the DLC Allen is transported to a place where the submerged cabin has been lost the story in game is that this all takes place in an episode of night Springs because Alan is actually in Arizona not bright Falls here Alan is trying to fulfill certain elements that are written on a manuscript page these manuscript pages are from the return manuscript that Alan was writing at the end of the DLC Allen has to find three different items and put them in specific places by an oil derrick he has to place a CD in a CD player turn on some lights and get the Derek running these specific conditions cause a massive satellite to collide with an asteroid in space and destroy the oil derrick at the same time we're also following just behind Mr scratch trailing him as he pretends to be Alan he's a sort of evil version of Alan running around and torturing people there's also something else pretty interesting about this reality that Barry is the manager for old gods of Asgard instead of Alan after we fulfilled a reality changing conditions we Trace Mr scratch to the observatory here we encounter a scientist who is Manning the large machine Mr scratch was already here and sabotaged the Imaging array so that we couldn't get a very important signal coming from a satellite we have to help her out and eventually get this signal which is incomplete the final location we travel to is the drive-in theater tracking down Mr scratch at the theater is a woman who is trying very hard to get in Allen's pants she's been seduced by the darkness and is now trying to seduce everyone else we reset the power to the place and are confronted by Mr scratch who threatens us telling us our goal and effort are futile when we return to the girl she gives us the access code to the projector room we have to take down some taken to get inside and we have to use the signal that we found before to match the room to the details on the page these can be things like movie posters in a specific spot or the calendar on the wall when we get it correct it doesn't matter because the signal wasn't complete we need the rest of it so we're reset back to the beginning back to the sunken cabin this is our Loop we actually have to go through this loop three times through the course of the story now of course we don't do the exact same thing every time and things actually get a little shorter each run through what some of the people we encounter retaining memories of the previous loops and helping us out I think the story and scenario for this little mini game which is what I'm going to be referring to American Nightmare as is really good there's a lot of interest here especially because the story is slowly revealed over the course of American nightmare's brief play time it's not given to us all at once and we're kind of lost for a lot of it but as we figure out what's going on we're kind of along for the ride there's also been a big change in gameplay in this entry the light and dark mechanics are still there but this game is much more action focused than the bass Allen wake game we have a larger variety of weapons different shotguns types of pistols and even an assault rifle we can unlock certain weapons by collecting more manuscript Pages these weapons get more powerful and useful we also get more enemy varieties in this entry even some guys and vests that hurl Shadow grenades at us the combat is really fun in this entry so fun that they've even added an arcade mode where you can challenge yourself to battle the take into your heart's content eventually going through the loop two more times Alan gets the situation in the projector room correct Mr scratch is destroyed the agent of something larger has been defeated the champion of light has won Alice is finally reunited with Alan this beautiful shot of light and dark on either side is just a fantastic end to this it's confirmed at the end though that Alan is still trapped in the dark place and the narrator lets us know that this could just be a figment of Allen's imagination the script is titled return and the last thing we see is Barry waking up in his motel room calling out for Alan this little game was actually really welcome in my opinion these sort of little projects are a lost art form we don't really get these middle-sized games anymore it's kind of a shame but also probably better off because most of the time they're used to just get some extra cash out of the audience American Nightmare is a rare example of the team doing something fun and interesting with their world there's a few more parts of Alan wake's world that we haven't yet explored the first is a very brief mini-series that was created as a prequel to Alan Wake called bright Falls the mini-series is seemingly the only piece of media to not have the weird dubbing effect going on that even American nightmare had my pet theory is because this is the only real piece of media and not an Alan Wake creation the show centers around Jake Fisher a journalist who is doing a story on Dr Hartman he meets Rose very early on in the diner who trudeiform won't shut up about Alan Wake Jake hits a deer in the middle of the night which is quite ironic considering deer Fest is so soon Jake gets to the motel and the owner is very silent classic creepy bad guy and a horror the tone to this miniseries is also very different than that of the game it's very quiet very still and slow it takes its time and there's actually some genuinely spooky moments here where Alan Wake feels a bit more catchy while Jake is in town he decides to meet up with an old friend named Ellen it doesn't go well because it seems Alan has feelings for Jake but he's already with someone Jake finally heads to his interview with Hartman but when Hartman starts to use his tricks on him he gets some vicious visions and doesn't remember anything from their conversation he has some crazy notes from the interview and heads through a tunnel only to wake up in the woods covered in blood nobody really listens to any of Jake's concerns but the motel owner is eventually taken we see a news report about Alan Wake On TV and Jake has another Vision when a deer Fest commercial plays he wakes up inside of a body bag on the shores of a lake Jake decides to head back to Hartman's and tries to get his help but it doesn't work back at his hotel he decides to tape himself to a fridge and leave the camera on he falls asleep and wakes up untaped he watches the record only to find himself having wrecked the entire room a cop Deputy Mulligan comes to the motel to investigate The Disappearance of the owner it's worth noting that Mulligan is referenced in a couple manuscript pages but we never actually see him in the game just playing the game you'd probably be pretty confused as to who he is he believes Jake when he tells him that an animal must have snuck in his room and destroyed it Jake decides to leave town and has Ellen drive him out Jake blacks out again and Ellen is gone while he is in the driver's seat it's implied that he killed Ellen and we see wake and Alice arrive in town passing the crime scene there are quite a few theories on this miniseries and what exactly it means for the story personally I think it's pretty simple I think that the dark presence was trying to take Jake over seeing as he was a writer it was trying to control him and it either didn't work or he wasn't the writer it was looking for so it discarded him the miniseries over all is all right it does have its moments some genuinely unsettling points but I also think that there are some really boring points it's only a half an hour long overall but there's a lot of scenes of people driving I know that's probably just because the budget was low but seeing silent scenes of driving over and over gets real old another piece of supplementary media that was released in the Allen wake universe is called the Allen wake files at first glance you would think that this was a third party book that was released as maybe an early 2000s strategy guide for a video game but you would be wrong to think that because this book is actually written by Clay Stewart why does that name sound familiar it's because clay saved us and then died in our nightmare at the beginning of Alan Wake clay Steward is a writer as well working on a psycho-literary analysis of HP Lovecraft one day when he began to encounter Alan Wake in his dreams he decided he needed to save the man or at least look into him his book The Alan Wake files was not sold outside of the Allen wake collector's edition meaning you had to buy this special edition of the game which I should point out is packaged as a book entitled Alan Wake signed by Alan way if you wanted to read it the book has many different and interesting sections that contextualize the world of bright Falls and Alan as a character while also telling the story of clay Stewart the first section details the field notes that agent Nightingale took when he was on his investigation through these notes and some of the later parts of the book we actually learn a lot more about Nightingale we learned that his partner was killed in the line of duty and this sent him spiraling this is the reason he's a drunk gun waving Maniac that we see in the game we also get to read the transcripts of his interviews that he did on various people which shows us that he wasn't just that confrontational only with Alan the third section of the book is short but showcases some extra manuscript pages that were found around bright Falls ones that we didn't see in game these Pages usually have to do with characters that we never see or had nothing to do with the fourth section Alan wakes fiction sees Stewart venturing back into wake's writing career we first get to read an early piece of wakes fiction called errand boy that was a short story published in a magazine the first chapter of Return to Sender is also here this is one of Alan's Alex Casey novels and reads like it was pulled straight out of Max Payne the non-fiction section seeks to deepen the history of the town and some of its characters we can read excerpts of Emil Hartman's book and a history on bright Falls the exhibit section has various clippings from newspapers and magazines there's a piece on the volcanic shake that sunk diver's aisle Barbara Jagger's obituary an article about wake and his Feud with the paparazzi a police report from Bright falls about a missing couple a request for information about nightingale's FBI background and some photos of diver's aisle of course Steward was not successful in Saving Alan Wake because wake can only be saved by himself and he's currently trapped in the dark place Steward though has his own tragic tale written in these Pages he spent a while researching bright Falls and trying to find Alan the story consumed him so much that he became obsessed because of this his wife and child left him and the book doesn't end with a happy reunion I have to commend developers when they do things like this this book is something incredibly interesting something that most people that played the game would probably never see I know that I never saw it when I played Alan Wake upon release I had no idea it was even out there until I started researching for this video but to the fans that did find it it's an extra piece of information it adds more context to the world more meat to the story for something like Alan Wake where we're constantly digging for more information that meat is always welcome there were two Comics released in the Allen wake Universe the first is called night Springs this comic actually takes place during the game specifically episode 5. it follows detective Frank breaker the father of sheriff Sarah breaker he's no longer on the force retired and now a simple Apple farmer Sarah has Barry call her father and give him the message night Springs this mobilizes the sheriff into heading across town and wrangling people up to get them ready for something it's kind of funny because their little group reminds me quite a lot of the book house boys from Twin Peaks their little gang of mostly policemen and then a radio host is just great Frank tries to make his way to the power plant to find and help Sarah he fights off a ton of take-in on the way and single-handedly defends himself Jagger tries to stop him but he makes it just barely and is reunited with his daughter the second comic is called psycho thriller it follows Emile Hartman at his lodge one day after the events of episode 4 in the game when Emil wakes up from being knocked out he tries to make his way through the clinic but here's the screams of nurse Sinclair she's being attacked by Mott who's taken form is coming back to get revenge Hartman eventually sacrifices one of his patients to distract Mott so he can get away he then gets two officers to help him take Mott down when he lures him out mod is destroyed and Hartman has to leave his clinic now that he's lost wake there's also a brief moment at the end that's kind of touching alluding to the relationship between Thomas Zane and Hartman the comics themselves were actually not bad in general the art and psycho thriller leaves something to be desired there's some weird things happening with perspective and shading here but overall the stories aren't that bad Sam Lake helped write these so I can see how they actually became competent and I have to say overall this is one of the series with the best supplementary material that I've seen in a while if there's a series out there with extra content actually worth looking into it's probably this one don't get me wrong the mini series has its flaws there's some unnecessary stuff in the book and the comics themselves aren't the greatest thing ever written but it's nice to actually see a series that has some content that's meant for human consumption most of the time tie-in novels and movies and spin-off games can just be literal hot trash but here it's actually not bad not only is the quality a bit higher but it all actually ties into the story of the game it's actually necessary not just a cash grab Alan Wake is truly something special it would be the first in a new vein of games for remedy they were blending their previous goals linear narrative in-depth story with this new idea a wide and deep world that was full of interesting threads the game's story itself has so much to say enough to fill a book with it's at once a commentary on writer's block and not just writer's block but the pain that comes from it the defeating nature of the beast on the page the Monumental task of writing and the doubt associated with it because writer's block isn't just running out of ideas it's being terrified to come up with a bad idea the game's Shadows represent this concept spitting insults as if they come from your very own mind but the game also comments on the player themselves how the player deals with being connected to a video game how when we pick up that controller or use that key keyboard we are connected with the game we are both at once the game the player and something new something both at the same time this also comments on how the creator of the game interacts with it as well they create the game but a piece of them is still inside it still interacting with it long after it's been put into someone else's hands it's something inescapable a constant forever Alan Wake is a video game is also a wildly unique design especially for the time it was interesting to see an action slash horror game that forced you to fight Darkness with light rather than being the action hero running and gunning through the streets of New York we're wandering the forests picking up pages and using a flashlight to push away monsters in the dark but I think one of the most interesting things that remedy does is incorporate media into their games not only the media that they love but the other media they create they somehow manage to blend every piece into one cohesive world where it constantly feels like we need to move outside of it to piece together the story this fulfills the goal that games like Silent Hill set out to do back in the 90s in the early 2000s it forces you to piece the story together to figure out what's going on while also telling you that figuring out the mystery isn't necessarily the point Alan Wake was a massively wonderful project it's incredibly unique different a Shining Light in the darkness it's a game that won't soon be forgotten by me or anyone else that's had the pleasure of enjoying its World Alan Wake got decent reviews upon release the Xbox 360 version has an 83 on Metacritic as of today some critics loved the game The Independent in particular giving it a 5 out of 5 and praising the game's pacing other outlets like wired weren't as keen on it giving it a six out of 10 and citing the untapped potential of the game as its main weakness the game did go on to win its fair share of awards it was given IGN's best horror game Award of 2010 nominated for best Xbox 360 game of 2010 at the spike Video Game Awards and even won game of the year for Time Magazine the game wasn't a huge Blockbuster on the sales charts though it unfortunately released the same week as Red Dead Redemption which sold 1.5 million units during its first two weeks on the market whereas Alan Wake only sold 145 000. sales started to pick up after the first few months when the game started to get around through Word of Mouth by December 2011 it seemed that Alan Wake had sold somewhere around 1.4 million units clearly remedy followed up Alan Wake with his American nightmare but the team originally intended on releasing a numbered sequel this of course didn't end up happening right away it seems like this was due to poor sales and a long development time for the first entry but that definitely wouldn't be the end for Alan wake's story his character would make a massive appearance in another remedy game cameos in a different entry and at the game awards in 2021 remedy would announce Alan Wake 2 to release in 2023 this was just the beginning for Alan wake's story and remedies connected universe Quantum break was developed by remedy entertainment remedy was originally trying to pitch Microsoft's Studios a sequel to Alan Wake that included some live action elements Microsoft was not interested in publishing a sequel to Alan Wake though since the game had done kind of poorly in sales they were interested in the live-action aspect of that idea though so they wanted remedy to move forward with that on a new IP the team at remedy wanted to make a game about time travel with the idea actually originating from the night Springs episode about Quantum uh eyed in Alan Wake with the new IP ideas in place remedy pitched the idea again to Microsoft and they agreed to let remedy move forward with the project the game officially began pre-production in 2011. the story was written by Sam lake and a team of three writers Miko rautelati Tyler Burton Smith and Cameron Rogers all worked on the games writing while only Smith is credited with writing the TV show Rogers was an author that was shortlisted to work with remedy on this new IP because of his previous work the music of razors the team took heavy inspiration from pop culture with this entry this was as per usual but it seems like The Inspirations this time around were a little bit more mainstream films like Inception and Interstellar The Matrix Back to the Future primer and Looper were all the biggest influences on the story the whole goal with Quantum break's story was to make it unpredictable and to make it play off of the cliches of things that had come before it remedy was hoping to learn this time around though trying to develop the new entry in their history the ultimate remedy game as they called it the game was described as a transmedia action shooter video game and television hybrid this really just means that it was an action-adventure game with a TV show combined into the product Sam Lake originally wanted the game and the TV show to be completely different things featuring wildly different characters but the team scrapped this idea it made more sense to have the two blend together a little better one of the large goals with the story was that each player have an individual experience this is reflected in the Collectibles that are in the game certain Collectibles will affect the TV show and cause a ripple effect adding or removing scenes based on whether you've found them or not the TV show portions of the game were actually shot by a company called Lifeboat Productions the team wanted the science in the game to be realistic so they consulted a scientist a lecturer at Helsinki University this helped them ensure that the game's story and World conformed to the current physics of the time the game was also a massive upgrade for the team in terms of tech the north light engine was created between Alan Wake and Quantum break it's still the engine that remedy is currently using and was a massive breakthrough for them as a studio after years of work Quantum break was announced on May 21st 2013. the game was shown off at E3 and in Gamescom in 2014. it was originally set for release in 2015 but the game was held off for a year so as not to compete with Halo 5 rise of the Tomb Raider and Forza Motorsport 6. Quantum break was finally released on April 5th 2016 for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows before we get into things I want to briefly talk about the structure of this video because Quantum break is a story about time travel I will be approaching this series in a slightly different manner we will first talk about the game and its TV show companion going over the story and the gameplay as it's presented in the experience then I will go back and revisit the timeline of the game in chronological order going over the main events I've chosen this approach mostly because once we revisit these things the story will begin to make a little more sense we can also get a full picture of what exactly happens in Quantum break Quantum break begins with a narration giving us a general overview of the story and a tease of what's to come in general our story is about Jack a guy with powers fighting another guy with powers time is about to end and our heroes are trying to stop it this is just the beginning of things but I have literally no idea why the game feels the need to give us this trailer at the beginning of the game the framing device for this story is that Jack is telling the events to a woman that is interviewing him but it really starts back at Riverport University on October 9 2016. we get a little clue that something is going to happen when the game tells us that this date is 15 minutes to a fracture in time Jack is here to see someone named Paul Serene a very old friend of his from childhood Paul emailed Jack and said that he had something urgent to show him he needed him at the school right away exploring around the school we can quickly find the remnants of a protest on campus there's a company called Monarch that is trying to interfere with the school's library and some of the students aren't too happy about it here we can actually find a TV that's playing a trailer for a new show one starring Alan Wake himself and Sam Lake as a detective looking for him Alex Casey the show is aptly titled return the manuscript that Alan Wake was writing at the end of his story Jack meets up with Paul who leads him through the building to take him to whatever he needs to show him there's some optional information that we can find around this area to give us some context to the situation Jack's brother William Joyce was brought in to consult on Paul's new project but apparently William had caused some issues will was brought on because another scientist working on the project Dr Kim had died we can convince Paul to give us a brief presentation on Project Promenade his new Focus this project was focused on conquering time literally inventing time travel we eventually find out that Paul's project has actually built a functioning time machine Paul wants Jack to activate the machine while he goes inside to prove his brother wrong apparently William had gotten the financial backers to leave the project believing there to be devastating miscalculations with the design of the machine Paul decides to use the machine and just as he does another version of himself comes out having already traveled back in time to this Point Paul then steps in the machine two minutes later to travel back in time himself and see another version of Jack and himself just then William arrives trying to shut the machine down but Jack refuses the core then malfunctions and creates a massive explosion Jack is knocked out and when he wakes up he sees that the world is Frozen in Time Jack manages to free William who is still frozen and the two Escape while Paul must use the machine to get out Jack begins to escape with William who explains that the explosion has just caused time to be fractured luckily he's created a countermeasure to fix the fracture and avoid the inevitable End of Time entirely we eventually start to shoot at the agents chasing us and we get a crash course on combat now before we get too much further into the story we should probably talk about combat in general Quantum break is an interesting game because it represents in my eyes the beginning of a new era for remedy Quantum break certainly exhibits a lot of gameplay elements in design that we should see from remedy in the future but it really doesn't have that polish and shine yet it is at its core a third person action adventure game we can get access to a variety of different weapons pistols shotguns assault rifles but can hold only three at once ammunition is never in short supply taking out enemies will leave piles of ammunition and weapons on the ground for us to waltz over and pick up so we never really have to worry about guns in general the main Center of quantum breaks combat system lies in the powers that Jack has access to these time travel powers are what make up the rest of the combat system these Powers begin pretty small with us having access to time Vision a power that will let us see a red highlighted enemies in Orange environmental objects that can be used to blow our adversaries up we eventually get six total Powers though time stop allows us to fire a projectile and stop time at the area that it lands on we can also shoot into that area and stack bullets once time is resumed the bullets fly into the target dealing a massive amount of damage time Shield allows us to Slow Time Around ourselves in a small area and create a shield both stopping oncoming damage and healing us briefly time blast allows us to explode an area delivering a powerful burst of damage time Dodge gives us the ability to dash out of the way and aim down sights to slow down time for a brief moment and fire off some shots Time Rush is similar to time Dodge except we can run around and melee people as well taking them out up close and personal all of these Powers come together to form the core of quantum breaks combat we can also upgrade each power with cronon particles that are found by exploring different areas throughout the game I will say that the combat in Quantum break can get pretty intense with all of these powers in mind each having a cool down timer of its own trying to run around Dodge use your Shield blast enemies and freeze foes can be a lot in the middle of battle it can feel pretty good though when you pull off a good sequence of dodges and attacks running around an enemy blasting them with a shotgun to the back of the head to only immediately freeze the one beside them and start blasting again is great when you can pull it off well but Quantum break has a real issue with a combat system that doesn't start to rear its head until closer to the second half of the game the consistency in which this combat works and how it works is incredibly uneven sometimes we'll be able to pull these moves off with ease and other times the game will throw so many enemies at us that we won't know what to do it's incredibly inconsistent and there are some sequences in the game that are so frustrating just because there's 30 enemies in front of us and not really much we can do we also have such little Health that if we make one unlucky move it's kind of over for us this also isn't to mention the fact that most of our powers are close combat related meaning it's more advantageous to use if we're real close to enemies but the game seems to want us to play From Afar this is difficult when there's really only one long-ranged weapon in the game that's even halfway effective and it's not very common I think there are some really interesting ideas here I like the idea of freezing time and running around the battlefield to get a second to breathe I also think that the game's power system feels like a good implementation of super speed in a video game even though that's not what the story is at all but there are just way too many kinks in this game that need ironed out again I do think that remedy has a good idea but they were working something out in the center they definitely would have solidified it much better in their next game but for now we're left with Quantum break Jack and will try to head back to William's car so they can retrieve the countermeasure but William is kidnapped by Monarch Monarch is the company that's behind the library demolition Jack meets Beth Wilder who tells him where his brother is at once we rescue will we are quickly stopped by Paul but a different Paul dressed differently and much older it's clear that he's not exactly the same Paul that was trying to help us before he blows up the library and William is trapped inside jack watching William die is the Catalyst for his character it's his inciting incident the beginning of his hero's journey it's the reason that he goes on and it also at once creates a pulsarine antagonist for us Jack is taken captive by Monarch and we get our first Junction Junctions are short sections where we get to control Paul the villain of the story for a brief period of time in this period we get to make a major Choice one that will have a large effect on the story moving forward this is a genuinely interesting choice for the design of quantum break mostly because putting choices at the Forefront is already rare but making our choices happen in the shoes of the game's antagonist is even rarer it's a bold move and one that actually makes us sit back and think about what's going to happen I also think the choices were something that I genuinely had to stop and think about there are only four of these Junctions throughout the course of the game but they never seemed really black and white to me there was always something to determine something to be decided I had to genuinely stop and think about what I was going to do the proof in this also comes in the form of seeing the stats after we make these choices the game will usually tell us how our choices aligned with others and I was surprised to see a decently close split on a lot of these at our first Junction Paul and his right hand man Martin hatch decide what to do about the witnesses who saw their operation at the school the main witness representing the movement is the protester girl that we talked to before we can choose either Hardline or PR here Hardline will see Paul's team getting rid of all the witnesses killing them PR will see them using the pro testers to frame Jack Joyce our main character as a terrorist for this Junction on my first playthrough I chose PR I really didn't want to Massacre some protesters and I figured this would probably be better for Jack overall with this Junction act 1 is over there are five total acts in the game and each one is usually split by an episode of the quantum Break TV show now this is the main draw of quantum break as a game is that it isn't just a game it's also a show actually it's not also a show it's something in between some weird meshing of these two things at once some meld of video game and TV that I haven't really seen before some of the interviews for the game said that the TV show wasn't a hundred percent necessary that you could skip it in the game if you wanted but it was also highly recommended that you watch it I would recommend it not just because of the narrative information that it provides but also for the experience as well I find the whole marketing and explanation of quantum break as a TV show slash game to be quite odd considering the fact that if they weren't filmed with real actors then they'd just be real long cut scenes we've seen longer cut scenes and things like Metal Gear Solid death stranding and Star Ocean Quantum breaks TV show will cut in after each Act with four episodes in total each episode features actors playing the same characters that they did in game the graphical Fidelity of quantum break as a game is Just Advanced enough that it's not incredibly jarring the interesting thing about the show though is that it acts as almost a separate story sure there are themes and characters that overlap with the game but the few characters that do appear in the show don't really show up in the game for the most part now of course there are a few characters and moments in Quantum break that will make literally no sense to you if you haven't seen the show and one moment entirely that won't nearly hit as hard but it's still worth noting that the show is almost a different narrative it's also worth noting that the show will differ based on the choices that you make in the game The Junction choices will affect which timeline the episodes of your show are on but Quantum ripples will affect things as well there are a handful of different items that we can find throughout the game small Collectibles that will affect the TV show specifically for example letting Williams solve this formula on the Whiteboard at the beginning of the game will cause some randos in the show to say this was over in the lab at the University this morning someone solved the equation I do think the show is an interesting touch and it's a really ambitious move I think remedy's style of blending media together is really wonderful it's a wild new direction to go in with video games and I think that remedy would go on to perfect this idea entirely as of quantum break it isn't totally there though the TV show in particular seems to be of a different quality to the writing of the game the TV show has very much a CW quality to it if you've ever seen any of the arrowverse programming or Supernatural or something like that then you'll know what I mean it's shot the same way maybe it's the camera they're using or the budget that they're on but it just gives me those amateur cable sort of Vibes I also think that some of the actors don't do their best in this show there's a few in particular that are just overdoing it so hard this is in part due to the script and it's info dumping random slews of information when whenever it feels like it there's a lot of flaws here but that's why we're talking about it in the first place also just for reference I won't be going through every difference between each choice for the show just because that would make this video an unreasonable length I also think that leaving something to be discovered for the people that want to go play the game is probably the better option I will only be talking about the version of the story with the choices that I made the first episode begins with Martin hatch interrogating Amy Ferrero the protester that we met in the game hatch blackmails her into giving Monarch a statement for their PR campaign using her family as collateral out in the hallway hatch uses some eye drops and then talks to Liam Burke a higher up handyman in the company apparently Jack Joyce's transport has gone missing Liam is to go home to his wife and wait for their next instruction we're then introduced to another character Charlie wincott Charlie works for Monarch as the head of digital security he's getting ready to send that PR statement to the local news station hatch calls and tells Charlie to get the location of Jack's transport and forward it to Liam Burke he also hints that there may be a Trader working within Monarch Liam has arrived back at home and has a brief moment with his wife who we learn is pregnant she's clearly upset that he works so much and it also becomes clear that she doesn't know exactly what Liam does for work Liam is again quickly called into work though when Charlie tells him that he's found Jack Liam heads out to look for him but there's a stutter in the world causing time to stop and freeze him and everything around him jack is not frozen and notices this shift as it reverts and the world starts going hatch talks to Paul who says he had a vision of Jack at the island hatch also harps on Paul for not taking his treatments something we aren't clear on yet we're back at Monarch in the cafeteria and can see Amy on the news giving her statement if we found the quantum Ripple in the First Act we can hear two men talking about how some someone solved the equation on the board Fiona Miller takes some sandwiches from the cafeteria to Charlie and it's clear that Charlie has feelings for her he is smitten when she asks him to go to the Monarch party with her that night but he's still confused as to the dynamic of their relationship because she calls him buddy we see the warehouse where Jack is being held Beth Wilder was the one that kidnapped him Liam quickly finds them and pulls a gun on Beth they're in a standoff but moments later their guns are gone and so is Jack Beth thinks that time is coming to an end and that Monarch has been prepping for this for a long time Jack could be the key to fixing everything she starts to talk about something called the Lifeboat protocol but Monarch rushes in Liam finally decides to help Beth out and fights against the soldiers Beth tells Liam that she needs access to Dr Kim's Lab because he is somehow connected to this Lifeboat Charlie of course sees Liam fighting off the Monarch soldiers and takes the footage Liam tries to approach Charlie to get him into Dr Kim's Lab but Charlie tells him that he saw him on the camera Charlie tells Liam to get out before he alerts everyone and then as Liam runs away Charlie does just that Liam has to make a great escape out of the building and we have an incredibly tense Chase sequence as Monarch aren't going to let him get away that easily eventually Liam gets caught in an alley by way too many soldiers to fight off and he gives himself up as the episode ends now this episode is all right and it's actually probably one of the best out of the four it's paced pretty well it develops the characters decently one big complaint I have with the whole show is that the action sequences are shot pretty poorly it's half a problem with shooting and half a problem with editing there are way too many Cuts way too fast in a lot of these sequences the editing is really a problem with the entire show cuts that happen so fast we almost don't know what's going on it can be kind of hard to watch at certain points but when you're trying to cover up bad choreography holding a shot too long is kind of the enemy I will say that some of the acting in the show can be good but it's mostly from the people that are like actual actors Lance Reddick R.I.P big dog has given amazing performances in things like the John Wick series and the wire sure he's been in his fair share of schlock but he knows what he's doing Aidan Gillen was Littlefinger and Game of Thrones and said you're a big guy in The Dark Knight Rises Sean Ashmore is a little bit of a mixed bag because sure he was in the dope ass original X-Men movies as Iceman Bobby Drake but he was also in terrible movies like Frozen and the ruins Patrick huesinger's performance as Liam Burke is particularly wooden he's mostly been in junk I've never heard of though he did play a very minor character in Noah bomb box Francis ha but again it was so minor you wouldn't even remember it I also find Marshall Allman as Charlie to be particularly grading in the show though that is kind of the point of his character Mimi Michaels who plays Fiona was in the [ __ ] Gamer movie which is just one of the worst things I've ever seen and Brooke Nevin plays Emily Burke and her most known role was in The Comebacks of terrible sports parody movie led by David kochner and directed by Tom Brady not that Tom Brady the acting is just particularly poor across the show when it comes to people you don't really recognize this could be due to poor Direction in general as I'm sure you could squeeze some good performances out of these people if you really really knew what you were doing we then jumped back into the game act two of our story we get to see how Jack escaped captivity a stutter happened causing time to freeze and he took Beth and Liam's guns there are some puzzles in Quantum break some very simple obstacles that we'll have to surpass to move forward these are generally pretty rudimentary though they're not complicated in any way and really don't provide much challenge or require much critical thought I think think that there was a lot more that could be done with the time Powers relating specifically to puzzles but I don't think that Quantum break does much in this regard Jack makes his way through these industrial buildings and eventually saves Amy Ferrero if we would have picked the Hardline option before then he would see Nick Masters instead the interesting thing about Nick Masters is that his likeness was originally the main character of quantum break in a prototype that was shown off but was then changed when Sean Ashmore was selected we eventually begin to encounter Striker units these complicate combat a little bit these are monarch soldiers that have cronon harnesses attached to their backs they aren't stopped by the time stutter and therefore aren't affected by a lot of our powers we can still Focus down time to aim at them after using certain abilities but a lot of our time-altering mechanics won't affect them we eventually head into Ground Zero time here is fully broken more than we've seen before we track down Paul who is escaping on a hell helicopter he tries to stop us by crashing a massive ship into Jack we have to weave through the ship here as time fluctuates around it starting and stopping stuttering we finally meet up with Beth again who makes it clear that she's here to help us we head for the Bradbury Swimming Hall where William used to keep his office Beth tells us that she's been preparing for the fracture for most of her life here we realize that William had bought this building and kept it secret he was working on a time machine here for years and eventually built a working one the countermeasure that we're looking for though is gone and an old video of William says that Beth was the one that took it but she doesn't remember this we try to use the time machine but it's broken and malfunctioning I have to say that the designs for the time machines in Quantum break are actually wildly interesting the fact that the machine has a moving Corridor surrounding a black hole is just nuts seeing it in Motion makes it all seem pretty grandiose we can also find out through some off optional documents that the time machine functions like a clock when you walk inside walking clockwise will take you into the future and counterclockwise will take you into the past there's a lot of information that we find out through optional documents actually there's so much history understanding of timelines and just general events that we have no knowledge of if we don't seek out and read these materials papers and little pieces of information some of the Collectibles are also called Intel getting a certain amount of Intel will actually unlock different Diaries in the menus from different characters that we can listen to these span many different times and provide insight into these people their motivations and overall plot details this is remedy to a t though this is what they're known for not just telling a story through cut scenes and background dialogue but through notes emails pieces of media anything and everything they can use this can of course make the search for this information all the more fun fun it feels like putting together a puzzle this is nowhere better served than in a time travel story where we need to piece together the timeline to even figure out what happened Jack then decides to head to Gull Island and find Dr Amaral a higher up at Monarch solutions to try and get more information Jack is immediately captured by the soldiers and gives himself up this is where we get our second Junction here we can choose to let hatch interrogate Jack or have Paul interrogate him personally this is such an odd decision one of the ones that I had the hardest time with there's a strange dichotomy with these decisions because we're playing the antagonist we're not really sure how to choose on one hand we're playing a character so we automatically feel like we should side with that character there's an inherent justification for their actions as soon as we begin controlling them even if it's only for a few moments but suddenly we remember that we're playing the antagonist and we have to focus our choices around that to try and sabotage the antagonist in any way that we can this ends up in a strange Loop where we don't know what or how to make the correct Choice it's a wild position to be put in and something that I haven't really seen a lot of choice based mechanic games do here I chose to let Paul interrogate Jack this was mostly because I wanted to see what the two did together and this big confrontation felt like it should happen naturally in the story the downside of this was that Monarch would begin crumbling because Paul wasn't there to make his speech at the gala tonight here we end the second act of the game and begin the second episode of the TV show the episode opens with Paul getting one of his treatments from Dr Amaral she's very concerned with his condition and thinks that it will only get worse that the Mansion agala is being held and Charlie and Fiona are in attendance Charlie starts to tell Fiona about the traitor that he caught today but holds back the identity of the person because he isn't supposed to reveal that type of information clearly Fiona is up to something though Jack is tossed into the back of a van one that's already holding Liam Burke captive we get a short scene between Amaral and hatch as we realize that their motives are not the same they clearly don't see eye to eye on Paul's condition and hatch seems to not care much at all hatch calls someone and tells them to make the presentation look good Charlie and Fiona are at the gala getting tipsy Fiona invites Charlie to go for a walk the latter clearly thinking that he's finally made it Liam escapes his cell by convincing a guard to let him go to the bathroom Charlie and Fiona walk in the woods in a Quantum Ripple of a local sports team will appear if we found it Liam confronts Charlie in the woods and he quickly realizes that Fiona is connected to Beth Wilder the group of three make their way into a research lab and find some sort of Shifting specimen being held on lockdown this specimen is then revealed to be Dr Kim who is definitely not dead Paul finally begins to confront Jack he tells him that he cannot change the past it's not possible and he's tried the two saw a dead body when they were young and Paul went back to try and convince the man to not jump from a roof but scared him and caused the man to jump in the first place Paul tries to justify Will's death in this anger's Jack Paul wants Jack to tell him where the other time machine is but he refuses we then jump back to the group at the lab Charlie finds a document about the countermeasure written by Dr Amaral we find out that these stutters are increasing and this will inevitably lead to the End of Time the lab is stormed by Monarch Soldiers the group tries to run away but Fiona is trapped in a stutter we we realize that the inside of the lab is stutter proof they grab some cronon harnesses and Charlie puts his on but before Liam can put his on Charlie takes it and runs away Liam then has to wait for the stutter to end before he and Fiona can make their escape we then jump back to the game to begin act three Jack is freed from his captivity by Beth Wilder he then begins to search the island for Dr Amaral we're introduced to the Juggernaut enemies who are big massive foes that can only be damaged at a small point on their back we also find cronon dampeners which when we're in their vicinity will not allow us to use our powers we eventually get a harness for Beth to wear so that she can be free of the stutters when we arrive at the gala Beth is already in a stutter and we have to get her out this whole area is pretty great seeing a party Frozen in time like this is just a massively wonderful set piece there are a lot of environments like this and I think that the game should have focused on these sequences being frozen in time more because there's a lot of beautiful environments that can be created with it we eventually actually get Dr Amaral free and save her from being assassinated by a drone that hatch had sent we realized that hatch is actually working against Paul he's the traitor and is trying to take control of Monarch for himself we free the doctor and she escapes the island with Beth while Jack steals one of Paul's sports cars Paul is furious when he realizes that Amaral is gone and wants to know who the traitor in his midst is here we can choose to either trust Amaral or hatch I chose to trust Amaral mostly because hatch was already proven to be a traitor we really had no evidence of Amaral doing anything against Paul but this is one of those moments again where we aren't sure what decision to make if we know that hatch is the traitor shouldn't we pick the other option to screw Paul over in the end it's another interesting choice Paul eventually realizes that Beth is the one that has been the mole in his organization he's seen her before when he first used the time machine she tried to kill him but he never realized who she was this marks the end of act 3 in the beginning of episode 3 of the show Charlie arrives back at the Mansion a harness hidden under his clothes we once again see hatch putting eye drops into his eyes he begins to question Charlie and tells him about the Lifeboat protocol it hasn't really been clear up to this point what the Lifeboat protocol is especially if we haven't been paying attention to documents along the way the Lifeboat protocol is a program that was made to save essential Monarch Personnel when the End of Time arrives the end of time is the entire reason that Monarch was created Paul knew that the end of time was coming and was trying to prepare for it he did this by creating the Lifeboat a massive housing of people with stutter proof technology inside allowing tons of scientists to have much more time to complete the research necessary to fix time once again the Lifeboat protocol is only for a Sen Essentials though and the people that won't be on the Lifeboat don't even know about it Liam Burke for example was designated not essential mostly because of his attachment to his wife and child hatch tells Charlie that he can make him essential if he decides to defect and work for him instead of Paul Serene Charlie tells hatch he needs to go back to the HQ so he can be his man on the inside Paul is then informed that time is breaking down faster than they thought before that time will collapse in eight hours rather than the lengthy amount of time that they thought they had Liam and Fiona catch back up with Charlie who tells them about the Lifeboat the three of them then head under Gull Island hatch then decides to free Dr Kim by blowing up the lab that he's in there's a very weird moment where time stutters and Charlie is able to move because of his harness there's definitely some nefarious [ __ ] going on in his eyes but he doesn't get time to do anything before time starts again the three are then cut off by a man named Carlo who works for Monarch he shoots Liam and Charlie convinces him to let the other two go Fiona punches Charles early and leaves him Charlie tries to get some sympathy because he was blood on or whatever but that doesn't mean he still isn't an [ __ ] turns out Liam wasn't dead and he gets up to kill Carlo hatch tries to blame the lab explosion on Amaral but Paul doesn't believe him serene's only remaining treatments were in that lab as well Paul has something called cronon syndrome a disease that not much is known about it's deteriorating him and his mind causing him to become more aggressive and more detached from time and space these treatments could have extended his life but now that there's none left he's in serious danger Paul finally decides to use the CFR a monarch device and activate the Lifeboat protocol much to hatch's dismay Liam heads to the hospital where his wife works and sees her talking to Gibson a monarch employee Liam is attacked and takes out the man in the middle of the hospital his wife is of course afraid of him after seeing him kill a man and he tries to explain everything to her she finally agrees to go with Liam to Monarch as he tries to get them into the Lifeboat the episode ends at least in my timeline with Paul telling a soldier that he wants hatch to be taken in Act 4 begins as Jack is stopped near a bridge that Monarch has blocked off weaving through the buildings we can find an episode of night Springs where the team has lost their narrator and has to try and audition for a new one uh we can't find him so we need to look into a you know a uh a replacement Jack is eventually discovered by Monarch and caught in a shipwreck on the bridge here we have to jump through massive stutters of time while pieces of debris fly and crash into things this section was kind of frustrating for Me Maybe I just never got the hang of the platforming but it always felt like it was kind of wonky timing is absolute key but I felt I had to do a few jumps over and over just to get it right Beth and Jack are reunited and the two need Amaral to fix Williams time machine so that they can fix time in general she doesn't think that time can be fixed based on Paul's experiences she thinks time is a closed loop I will say that this is one of the most interesting things that Quantum break does as a story not just through the cut scenes and show but also through documents we'll find many different things telling us how time works in this universe both Paul and William seem to think that time is a closed loop this means that you could go back in time to try and fix something but you'll probably just end up causing that very thing to happen in the first place many film films take this sort of approach 12 Monkeys Looper Interstellar there are a ton of examples of this happening but the thing that Quantum break does different is it makes you question if this is true usually the closed loop exists as a narrative twist we find this out near the end of our tail but here we already know this in the beginning there are subtle hints throughout the game that make us question whether time can really be changed or not I like this because we question the entire basis for the structure of time throughout the story rather than motivations it's a great setup and has us constantly wondering if we actually know what's going on Amaral helps get the machine working while Jack and Beth find a mural of Beth as a child painted by someone named Toto we've seen a lot of these murals throughout the game depicting different events this convinces Beth that she met an older version of herself when she was young and confirms for her that time cannot be changed Jack is convinced he can change things in the past so he decides to head back to 2010. Beth goes into the machine but Dr Amaral betrayed them setting the date for the End of Time the other thing about time travel in this universe is that you cannot travel back to before the core of the time machine was first activated this was the furthest date back that Williams time machine could go Paul sets the machine properly and heads to 2010 he finds Beth there having lived the last 11 years normally she's clearly traumatized seeing way too many things that she doesn't want to talk about we can read her journal and see everything that she went through there is an odd focus in this game with people trying to stop 911 both Paul and Beth tried to stop it multiple times but it never worked I get what they're doing here and in that modern time span that date would have held the biggest tragedy but it's still sort of odd the focus that's put on it death was actually sent to the end of time she saw Paul there and the two chased each other both trying to take down the other person there they found that the end of time was inhabited by shifters some strange beings that call that place their home they don't adhere to the rules of time and clearly this is what Paul has been fighting against he wants to stop the end of time and the shifters from taking over or at least save as many people as he can Beth was traumatized by seeing what happens to the world Beth then follows Paul back to 1999 and stopped him from killing William she then lived the next 11 years out normally because she realized that time couldn't be changed Beth was the reason that William built the machine called the countermeasure in the first place to try and fix the fracture in time the two head to Williams workshop and steal the counter measure the same thing that we saw William say happened on the video earlier Paul is already there to stop them though Beth refuses to work with Paul and she is shot the countermeasure flying from her hands when the countermeasure activates it causes ground zero an event that has been talked about for the entire game this sends Jack back to 2016 and he sees an echo of time he watches as Beth is killed unable to do anything to stop it because it already happened six years ago I think this scene is actually really well done having Jack forced to watch as Beth is killed is another huge motivator for him moving forward also we as the audience realize the futility of what is happening he's trying to stop it but he can't do anything about it it's pretty sad and very Bleak Jack leaves and is determined to take back the countermeasure from Paul we get our last Junction in the game we play as Paul once again as his condition is rapidly deteriorating he only has one treatment left one that was recovered from the lab explosion he has no idea if it will even work or if it's safe to use Paul is also becoming much more paranoid clearly mistrusting everyone around him we can choose to let Paul take the final treatment in the control choice to try and see the Lifeboat plan through or we can choose to let Paul surrender to the cronon syndrome and let his plan fail I chose the control option I felt it made a better villain to have Paul go all out and finally try and see things through Paul's surrendering before the very end just didn't seem to fit his character very well this ends Act 4 and Begins the final episode of the quantum break show we see Martin hatch being apprehended by Monarch security he is taken into an elevator and steps out having killed the soldiers inside we realize now that hatch also has cronon-related powers at some point having obtained them I think hatch's character is really interesting in this regard clearly he's been working behind the scenes the entire time he's been exerting his control from the Shadows but all along he's been incredibly powerful he could have taken back what he wanted by force but he didn't because it wasn't the smartest thing to do he held back and he only used his powers as a last-ditch effort this fits his character very well and makes him seem all the more powerful for it as he doesn't make his power known this episode of the show is also the most variable because your choices in previous Junctions begin to pile up having cascading effects this episode could be different if you picked the control and the Amaral option before and it could be different if you picked control and the hatch option before in my version of the episode Amaral arrives back at Monarch heading to see Paul he sends her off to the Lifeboat telling her that he'll join her soon Charlie hacks into the Monarch computers and adds himself and Fiona to the list for the Lifeboat Fiona is told by Jack that Beth died she realizes she needs to help Jack get the counter measure from Monarch the thing that is powering the Lifeboat protocol Fiona then gets a message from Charlie telling her that he put her on the list Charlie finally enters the Lifeboat and no one is there he's by himself for a bit and then people begin to fill in Fiona herself arriving I will say that I thought the Lifeboat was going to be a little cooler it does just kind of look like an underground bunker which is nice but it was just built up for so long that I wish its design was a little more creative Fiona explains what needs to be done to Charlie and in his final redeeming moment he offers to get the counter measure himself I don't really think this redeems him actually because I feel like they made Charlie a little bit too much of a sniveling turd but that's just me Charlie begins working with Jack over the radio to try and guide him to the countermeasure when Liam and Emily arrive Paul explains that he needs Liam to protect the countermeasure if it isn't protected then there will be no Lifeboat to go to if he is successful then his wife will be added to the list and will weather the End of Time safely Liam heads upstairs to try and get to the counter measure Charlie is already at the top of the tower hacking into the countermeasure so that Jack can take it Liam arrives though and tells Charlie to back off Charlie's then shot by hatch who arrives also trying to kill Liam before he can grab the machine though Liam attacks him and kills him Liam then suits up in a striker outfit and awaits Jack's arrival ending the TV show We Begin The Fifth Act of the game and I have to say this is where the combat encounters start to become pretty uneven here I feel like the game just begins to throw huge amounts of enemies at us it no longer becomes a challenge just staying back and shooting it's more of a waiting game than a fast-paced fight they can be pretty laborious at times and some of these fights just drag on Jack finally arrives at Monarch HQ to find that time has begun to degrade fully at this point Jack is attacked by one of the shifters that's been killing Striker units we eventually arrive at the counter measure to find Liam guarding it this is one of my favorite moments in the game one that's been built up to the entire time the whole game makes a point to try and blur the lines between friend and foe we realize here that every Striker that we've killed so far every Monarch Soldier was probably just following orders sure some of them were probably just bad people but these people thought they were doing the right thing that extends to Paul as well they were led to believe something and the game tries to make us sympathize with them we eventually have to kill Liam Jack not really knowing who he is we also find Charlie dead in and Jack grabs the countermeasure traveling back in time to 2016. we realize that in the first level of the game Monarch was dealing with someone else that was Jack the whole time Jack ends up saving William from the blast but William never actually died this always happened time must be a closed loop William wants to return to the present and use the counter measure to fix the fracture in time Jack sees Beth during a stutter still alive he almost takes her out of the stutter but stops Jack and William head back in time and William is trapped in a stutter Paul and his forces begin to attack and we have one final battle we have to fight tons of Monarch security and attack Paul when he's vulnerable Jack punches Paul who lands on his neck and dies William and Jack use the counter measure causing a massive explosion and fixing the fracture in time they've completed their mission it must be possible to change things because they just did Paul's body is missing though and William believes that the fracture isn't done just yet Jack starts to get vision of himself at the end of time and starts experiencing symptoms of cronon syndrome we jump forward a month to the frame that the entire game has been following Jack has been being interviewed by a woman at Monarch the woman asks Jack if he believes that time is a closed loop now with everything he's seen we then see him telling Beth that he'll come back for her Jack talks to hatch outside of the interview who offers him a spot at Monarch Jack then sees one final Vision one Junction to either join Monarch or leave them behind but we don't get to make this decision because the game ends here before we talk about my final thoughts on the game I'd like to go back through and briefly explain some things a lot of this probably doesn't make sense even if you've played Quantum break this is mostly because Quantum break has a pretty complicated timeline I didn't think it was that complicated after I played the game until I started looking closer so I'd like to go down the list of events to see exactly what happened along the way the story really starts in 1997 when William Joyce began working on Research into cronon energy William worked with Elton Meyer on this discovery and began gaining media attention for it in 98 William began some preliminary experiments with a hamster in 99 William first activated the time machine in his Workshop Paul immediately emerged from the machine and tried to kill William Beth arriving shortly after preventing him from dying Beth then informed William of what his time machine was going to do in the future and told him to build a countermeasure a device that could fix the fracture in time that would inevitably happen the Paul that traveled back to 99 is from 2016 and begins to start the Bare Bones of Monarch Solutions around this time William buys the Bradbury swimming pool in an effort to make this his main place of work William starts working on the countermeasure here and Beth goes into hiding Beth also finds her eight-year-old self and gives her a notebook of events that will happen in the future and also ways to prepare for what is coming Anthony and Catherine Joyce William and Jack's parents are killed in a car accident which Beth tries to prevent to no avail in the year 2000 Monarch begins tracking William and Beth stops directly contacting him to avoid being found out Monarch begins researching physics and buying out media companies to control Public Image the Beth from 2016 begins training and preparing for 2010 also spray painting and putting graffiti around town under the name Toto after her favorite band in 2001 Martin hatch joins Monarch in 2002 Beth is almost caught and killed by Monarch Solutions it's around this time the that she also begins having nightmares regarding her experience in the end of time in 2006 Monarch buys out Gull Island and starts a research facility there Martin hatch is then given the position of head spokesperson at Monarch and the previous spokesperson is found dead in 2008 Beth reaches out to William and he explains the countermeasure to her in 2009 Dr Kim joins Monarch Solutions the same year Monarch also begins monitoring Williams Workshop in 2010 Jack and William get into an argument and Jack decides to leave the country starting a new life at this time William also begins to complete the countermeasure on July 4th William completes the countermeasure and Jack from 2016 arrives in 2010. he steals the countermeasure only to see Paul kill Beth and cause Ground Zero Ground Zero is the massive event in which the countermeasure was set off causing tons of cronon particles to be released William tries to contact Beth multiple times but she doesn't answer because she's dead so via Amaral joins Monarch Solutions somewhere around 2010 the present-day Paul joins Riverport University and begins working on Project Promenade the time machine that we see at the beginning of the game at this time Dr Kim starts writing about the countermeasure and Monarch starts referring to it as the CFR or cronon field regulator in 2011 Monarch begins constructing the Lifeboat in 2015 Monarch begins using the CFR for the Lifeboat system in 2016 Dr Kim has an accident which exposes him to massive amounts of cronon energy the event is covered up in the official story is that he died on October 9th of the same year Jack arrives at Riverport University in the fracture in time occurs Paul travels to the end of time then the events of the game occur of course playing out differently depending on the choices that we made the end of time is technically somewhere around 2021. this is when Paul arrives from his first travel through time and Beth arrives after Amaral Center to the wrong date they both escape with their lives the other mystery that we haven't really talked about is shifters these otherworldly beings that Paul was trying to Stave off with the Lifeboat protocol are actually people with the same powers that hatched Jack and Paul have people that have been affected by cronon syndrome eventually become shifters shifters are unique because there are many alternate versions of them and just because one dies doesn't mean the shifter is dead just that another version will come about this is why Martin hatch is alive at the end of quantum break because he was a shifter the entire time this really isn't made very clear unless we read all of the documents in the game he leaves Jack a note in act 5 that mostly explains this it's one of the most interesting parts of the game and it's implied that Paul becomes a shifter at the end that Henry Kim was a shifter and that Jack could become one someday the whole world of quantum break is incredibly interesting and remedy always excels at this sort of World building I do think in Quantum break it's a little more in the background though there are a ton of documents in the game with very Vital Information that can just be easily skipped there's actually a ton of people I found online that just thought remedy somehow screwed up by having hatch still alive at the end of the game but I think the world overall is very interesting it's also somewhat connected to the remedy connected Universe the game references Alan Wake multiple times the night spring TV show there's a Blackboard in the school with tons of scrawled notes about Alan Wake that really looks like the notes I made when I was making my video on the game and we can find an Alex Casey novel also with the existence of shifters there's plenty of room for alternate realities to be had here I should also point out there is a novelization of quantum break called Quantum break zero state that was written by cam Rogers who worked on the game as well it's not just a novelization though it's an alternate reality version of the events that happened in the game the the book isn't really Canon technically but also Sam Lake States at the beginning of the book that it's basically just an alternate timeline where different events took place it's actually not a bad book and is a pretty good way of approaching novelization Quantum break is an incredibly interesting project I actually consider it remedy's most ambitious but it's still incredibly flawed there are a lot of integral problems with the game that aren't easily fixed the combat can be awkward and clunky like fiddling with a block of wood rather than a controller or keyboard it can be quite frustrating as well because I think a lot of the ideas are there the concept of time traveling Powers being able to freeze people in place or run circles around them is great but it just doesn't really work fully I think the narrative is really unique especially in concept the idea of incorporating a TV show sort of into your game is wild this isn't a very common thing in games clearly but remedy always tries to blur the line between video game movie book and music it's all nebulous when it comes to them and this is a Hallmark of all their games I will say that while it is interesting the execution isn't the best some of the TV show can feel really cheap overdone and Bland I don't feel like this game had a really interesting aesthetic either like Alan Wake or control did it felt like the world kind of took a back seat the really interesting parts of the world are left to be found by the player through thousands of words of documents now this is fine and many games do this but in Quantum break it's put a little too far into the background the game's story is well done though and you're constantly questioning where it's going to end up or really even what's going on I think the choice based mechanics should also be given a spotlight here the fact that we can get wildly different outcomes in the TV show based on the choices we make is a really special idea there are things that are actually affected here and this feels like our choice actually matters Charlie's death and my playthrough for example is entirely up to the choices that we make in the game also the ambition involved with forcing us to make choices through the villain of the story should be commended it makes us run in circles deciding who we want to support and what we want to happen in the story we almost feel like we're crafting The Narrative with remedy right rather than playing along with what they've determined the whole project is just interesting and I think that if you're a fan of what remedy does then you will find things here to love but if you're on the other side of that coin I don't really think this game is for you Quantum break was generally well received but a lot of critics were divided on parts of the game some praised its ambitious story While others thought it was too complicated some loved the gameplay and movement that was available While others thought it was clunky and loose Quantum break also seems to have sold well with pre-orders exceeding Microsoft's expectations the game went on to be their best selling original property since the release of the Xbox One a sequel to the game was in talks with Microsoft wanting the game to be a flagship title moving forward in 2016 though Aaron Greenberg general manager of marketing at Xbox said the game sold very well but like every movie not every game needs a sequel and sometimes that's okay remedy CEO Taro vertala said that they wanted to do a sequel but it was pending approval from Microsoft who ultimately owns the property that was the last time we heard any news surrounding a potential sequel to the game but that wouldn't mean the end to remedies connected Universe they would go on to release another game in 2019 that was one of their best yet control began development before remedy's previous game Quantum break was even released Mikhail kassurinen who had worked on Alan Wake as the lead gameplay designer and Quantum break as the lead director returned to work on control as the game's director when Quantum break was finishing development Mikhail had the idea that their next game should have a more open world that let the players choose what they experience they wanted to shift Focus from a complex story to a more interesting universe and world this didn't mean that the narrative wouldn't be focused on but that the world would be put at the Forefront for this entry this meant putting tons of documents audio logs and videos for players to find and interact with when they wanted to the first idea that the team had was creating the FBC or Federal Bureau of control in the game this organization controls categorizes reports and monitors different paranormal events objects or people this idea was built atop of the incredibly popular collab writing project called SCP SCP stands for secure control protect the SCP Foundation is a fictional organization much like the FBC that controls paranormal objects or creatures each numbered SCP is generally a small entry listed as a file on some sort of object or creature with strange properties these can range from creatures made of concrete that disappear when not looked at an infinite staircase inhabited by a creeping entity or an Ikea store that houses a pocket Dimension and hostile creatures SCP has spawned many pieces of media video games animated films live action it's inspired a certain genre of Internet horror and is probably responsible for the modern popularization of Creepypasta in general to a new generation I did go back through and read some old SCP for this video though and I have to say that it's pretty Hit or Miss I definitely thought these things were much cooler when I was a kid back then there was a certain implication or at least a fantasy in my mind that these could be real I knew they weren't but there was a little thought in the back of my head that just kept saying what if now they've seemed to age a little poorly I do think that control does their version of scps a lot better though in my opinion we'll talk about that in depth in a bit the goal with the FBC was to create a new entry in weird fiction or new weird instead of going for straight up scares of the big horror that we normally see in games of that genre the developers of control wanted to create a consistent sense of fear throughout the game remedy wanted to use an older style of technology in control slide projectors and floppy disks for example the team took inspiration from brutalist architecture for the oldest house Stuart McDonald the world designer for control said that brutalism has a sense of power weight strength and stability to it the building itself is a prison for the weird the team used real world buildings for inspiration like the at T long lines building brutalism was most popular in the 50s during post-war UK the design is characterized by minimalist styles with basic building materials usually using exposed concrete or brick the team was also inspired by films Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange the shape of water and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy all provided a good base for oppressive agencies and ritualism and organized offices or bureaus the team also took inspiration from books like Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and much more obviously House of leaves by Mark Z Daniel lewski one of the team's biggest objectives was to create an environment that would encourage the player to explore and find things themselves remedy accomplished this by simplifying the design of the UI using a more minimalist outline for the interface this causes players to have to use Mission descriptions to solve quests or find objectives the game was also another huge step for the team and terms of tech and Graphics it was one of the first large releases to include real-time Ray tracing with DirectX remedy partnered this time with 505 games to publish control rather than Microsoft this time though they would retain the IP rights unlike Quantum break the game was originally codenamed p7 and was later revealed at E3 2018. control was released on August 27 2019 for PlayStation 4 Microsoft Windows and Xbox One a few notes before we get into things I played the ultimate edition of control that was released for the current generation of consoles I played the PlayStation 5 version of the game for this video this version of the game is slightly upgraded graphically for the new systems it also includes all of the previous free content updates and paid DLCs foundation and awe both of which we'll be talking about towards the end of the video control begins with a narration from our main character Jesse faden Jesse is talking to some sort of disembodied presence something we'll learn a lot more about as the game goes on she's following the directions of this presence which has led her to the Federal Bureau of control she describes her situation as staring at a poster on a wall alone in a room she says that the poster is a lie that the poster is not the world the world is larger stranger hidden behind a hole past the poster this is similar to play Plato's the allegory of the Cave the Shadows on the wall of the cave are reality to the ones who dwell there Jesse arrives at the FBC the place that supposedly holds this hidden world that she speaks of the place seems to be abandoned though we can collect some memos that give us a picture of the way the bureau operates one that has a list of items that are banned from the building a very redacted memo seemingly about a dangerous shark and one about some innocuous R4 reports that need to be turned in by everyone we can find portraits of some important people in the FBC namely Dr darling the head of research Zechariah trench the director and the janitor we encounter the janitor soon after this whose name is ATI he seems to think that we've come to apply for the job of janitor's assistant he tells us to head to the director for an interview when we head back to where the portrait of the janitor was it's been replaced with an elevator Jesse revealed that she saw behind the poster when she was 11 and has been trying to see the real world ever since this is our short introduction to the game we then get an intro sequence that's actually a beautiful selection of different renders this short movie sets the game's atmosphere and tone incredibly well I'd also like to point out that before we get too further I should note that Jesse faden is played by Courtney Hope who also played Beth Wilder in Quantum break she's not the only returning remedy actor though Zechariah trench is played by James McCaffrey The Voice of Max Payne and Thomas Zane the voice of Alan Wake Matthew peretta returns as well as both the voice of Alan Wake and a new character Casper darling remedy certainly has its cast and I think it really works for them James McCaffrey is a classic his voice and likeness are both s tier material and he always does a great job Marshall especially ahead of operations she sees right through me Matthew peretta is again great this time providing a completely different performance in a completely different character this excited detached and intelligent head of research is a perfect role for him and he fits the part both physically and vocally we don't have the details but when things started flying around the disk it was Courtney Hope also plays a great main character providing an almost archetypal protagonist performance you can feel the jaded past through her voice and she does a great job throughout the whole game as we head to the director's office we can see something is wrong by finding some memos from trench that says he can't trust them heading into the office we find trench dead the presence tells Jesse to pick up the gun we then get to talk to the board a mysterious entity that exists within the astral plane the board is some sort of strange being or gathering of beings that presides over the oldest house they speak in strange terms with certain words often being replaced or joined with their opposites we see a video from Dr darling about objects of power objects of Power are objects that have been affected by an altered world event these items are usually connected to the astral plane and the weapon that the director Left Behind was one of them this is our main weapon for the entire game we're given a quick tutorial on combat here or at least how to use the service weapon this seems like a good time to dive deep into controls combat because there's actually a lot to it like I said before our main weapon of the game is the service weapon this is a simple pistol that we can use to defeat enemies we have a small meter below it that measures our ammo but this recharges slowly and has to recharge fully when we drain it this isn't the only thing that the service weapon can do though it can be modified quite a lot we can first modify its form to change the firing capability of the weapon the first form that we get when we inherit the weapon is grip this is very similar to a revolver or any other pistol it's single shot and Deals a decent amount of damage shatter Works more like a shotgun it's a wide blast and has more of a spread out pattern spin Works more like a machine gun with a high rate of fire and less accuracy Pierce is similar to a sniper low ammo and high accuracy that deals large damage charge works like a grenade launcher or Rockets it has low ammo and high damage but has a large radius of explosion the final one actually comes from the awe DLC and is called surge it fires grenades that stick to enemies or surfaces and then of course explodes with all these forms this isn't even the end to the level of modification that comes with the service weapon we can choose two of these forms to equip at any time and switch them out during combat but each of these forms can also take up to three weapon modifications based on how much we've upgraded it which can add damage ammo recharge or even modify other powers the service weapon itself is an interesting object of power and actually makes anyone who wields it the new director of the FBC it also seems like the weapon actually adjusts based on the person that's wielding it it's only the first of many paranatural items that we will see throughout the game but it's one of the most important control also has a skill system we get many different abilities throughout the course of the game using these abilities costs energy a small bar at the top of the screen that works pretty similarly to our ammo one of the earliest abilities we get and probably the most useful is launch this allows us to throw objects at enemies or just manipulate them telekinetically if we don't have an object within Vision we will just begin to pull concrete out of the floors or the walls I should also point out here that controls environment is incredibly destructible we will tear apart walls and objects by dashing throwing enemies into things or shooting grenades around it's incredible the amount of Destruction that actually exists here and it adds to the open feeling of the game it really makes each fight feel like a Battleground we are not leaving the land unscathed here we also gain the ability to create a shield later which will protect us from enemy attacks seize will allow us to take control of a low Health enemy and force them to fight against their compatriots levitate the last main ability that we gain in the game allows us to float above the ground for a period before slowly descending launch and levitate are probably my two most used abilities throughout the course of my playthrough launch does some massive damage when it's upgraded and levitate is fantastic traversal for both avoiding enemy attacks and just getting around the other thing I have to say here is that most of the abilities and controls combat in general are incredibly fun floating around the world and tossing desks at the hiss just always feels great it really feels like remedy has perfected their combat in this game there are some moments where we can just get hit with something that takes us out immediately which I would say is the only downside but for the most part the fighting is incredibly fun each of these abilities can also be adjusted from the skill tree we can gain straight up damage for things like launch or increase the amount of Health we have but we can also alter levitate so that we can ground slam enemies from above we can explode our shield and use it to attack enemies we can unlock multi-launch which allows us to launch multiple objects at once there's a lot of variety here with powers and even though we unlock most of these pretty quickly it does feel like they develop more and more throughout the course of the game we can also get mods which adjust these powers or Jesse's stats in general these mods just like the weapon ones can be picked up from enemies in chests or earned through quests these can add more Health Energy give us more launch damage more ammo when levitating there's a massive variety of builds that we can go for here the mods just add another level of variety and intricacy to the combat in the game I will say that I didn't really change mods much towards the end of my playthrough you also get so many of these that I constantly had to take the time to get rid of them in the menus and make more space for the rare ones when we complete the astral challenge we are given the service weapon we see visions of Zechariah trench the previous director providing us Insight on the job Jesse has no idea what's going on but she's at least happy that she knows what's behind the poster we start to see visions of Jesse live action footage of her surrounded in red she's almost overtaken by some sort of other presence but it's stopped by the presence that she has in her head we then begin to fight our first enemies of the game the hiss these are the antagonists of control a spreading pervasive presence that's begun to try and take over the oldest house we see more visions of trench who tells us to get to the hotline we can find some memos around the building that begin to show the bureaucracy that's involved in the FBC important things like costs for responding to awes placed right beside a new supplier for coffee filters we eventually arrive at Central executive which is crawling with hiss we take them out and learn to cleanse control points these control points will be scattered throughout the oldest house these are our checkpoints of A Sort they allow us to upgrade abilities fast travel craft upgrades for the service weapon and change our outfit we can also take on something called board countermeasures which are small quests that will give us weapon mods the control points themselves are important parts of the oldest house the device is set up at the control points are there to prevent building shifts the oldest house itself is a mystery the building is constantly shifting constantly changing it also doesn't appear to people outside of it you can't see it unless you know about it or have a reason to be there to the average person they just wouldn't ever notice it the oldest house also seems to not be able to interface with modern technology this is the in-world excuse for the bureau using all sorts of outdated Tech and Equipment Jesse meets Emily Pope Dr darling's assistant who's currently in one of the shelter room rooms Emily already knows Jesse because she calls her the new director Emily Wears an HRA device on her chest that protects her from being taken over by the hiss throughout most conversations that Jesse has we constantly get insights into our thoughts her short comments to the presence like do you know my brother Dylan not yet this provides us a view into her mind what she's thinking we learned that Jesse is hiding the fact that she's here looking for her brother Dylan and that Jesse has some past with the bureau Emily wants Jesse to cleanse some more control points to push the hiss out of the building she tries to cleanse a corrupted agent but it kills her Jesse talks to Emily again coming clean and telling her that the bureau was involved in awe in ordinary her hometown when she was a child Emily refers to ordinary as ground zero Emily doesn't know much about the event other than that it was a big event Pope tells Jesse that Dr darling would know more about ordinary our next goal is to go find the hotline a device that will allow us to contact trench he might know more about how to get rid of the hiss so we can find darling and Jesse can learn more about ordinary and her brother we have to head over to the Communications Department to find the hotline the nice thing about control's environment and Quest design is it tries to make you actually look for locations I say try because it's sort of a mix of the modern open world Waypoint system and the classic forcing you to actually look around for signs in the world we still get waypoints on the map but they can be pretty vague depending on the mission finding new departments usually requires us to actually look at signs around the world and seek these places out which can be pretty interesting that being said some areas of the oldest house are a little linear so you're just running forward and eventually hitting an end point the places that are more open with multiple Pathways tend to follow this broad design a little better and I think fit better with what remedy wanted to do in regards to their open world when it works it works and when it doesn't it's still better than an exact objective marker and HUD telling us how many meters we need to go before we reach our destination heading toward Communications will eventually reach a department called Dead letters here we can find some videos from Dr darling about paranatural topics and the first in a really interesting series of videos called the threshold kids it at first seems to be a TV program made by The Bureau as a sort of propaganda for the families of the people working there the first one is very dark seeing a child getting a letter saying that their mother is missing these strange and Bleak films paint a very dark picture of the bureau the people involved in it and everything surrounding paranatural entities dad says my mama went missing in actions she walked into the City and didn't come back remedy loves to flirt with the idea of horror this was clear in Alan Wake where the entire concept was based around horror and there were definitely some spooky elements the entire atmosphere was pushing a sort of schlocky horror even Max Payne had some horror elements in it the dream sequences being a particularly dark example Quantum break didn't have this as much but control had quite a lot of atmosphere to it there are many creepy moments and its entire aesthetic has an underlying fear to the whole thing the game seems to want us to be afraid but not afraid as if we're creeping down a dark hallway waiting for something to jump out at us but afraid of what we're up against the game doesn't want us to be afraid of being scared or caught by surprise it wants us to be afraid of ideas the ideas of the world that were thrust into the ideas of our enemies the ideas of altered items and awes in general there's also the bureau itself the fact that an organized Nation like this could exist with the public having no knowledge of anything like this even happening is kind of scary in and of itself again control is not a horror game by any means but just looking at the design color Aesthetics and some of the cutscenes in isolation you'd be fooled into thinking so dead letters itself is probably one of my favorite departments it's sole purpose is to Archive and categorize the letters that are sent to or found by The Bureau most of these have no paranatural connection whatsoever but they do end up being really funny specifically the one about James Bartholomew who has written in to say that he is in contact with all of the Dead Presidents of the United States and wants to know how he could be of use this also showcases and juxtaposes the Public's view of awes versus what paranatural things actually occur most people seemingly are not aware of the actual existence of any of these things and their interest is misplaced through Communications we find an object of power called the floppy disk that seems to have gone Rogue and is launching stuff around the room we can get close to these items and cleanse them this usually requires us to complete an astral Challenge and will provide us with a power this is where we get the launch ability we end up having to fight tomasi who's a flying hiss he's our first boss though he really isn't that complicated Alberto tomasi actually used to be the head of communications at the bureau but he's been turned by the hiss we defeat him but he just gets away we end up finding the hotline off in the distance with no way to get there when we pull the light switch cord three times we arrive at the Ocean View Motel this is a place that will appear in many different missions throughout control it's an interesting place because Jesse remarks that she's been here before she hasn't actually the Ocean View Motel exists as the idea of every roadside Motel possibly existing before these motels some sort of blueprint like Plato's world of forms but for chintzy motels that exist off the highway this place is also an intermediary space it's a place in between and can be used to affect the physical world here we usually have to solve a puzzle to unlock a door so that we can move forward this usually involves changing certain things in the rooms to match each other which will then produce the key that we need we can again pull the chord and Traverse to the hotline we can use this phone to contact the board through this we get some Communications from trench about his management team we tell Emily about what happened and that we need to find the department heads the two we're looking for now are Salvador head of security and Marshall the head of operations the oldest house is on lockdown though and we can't use the sector elevator Emily is impressed with Jesse's abilities and wants to run tests on her but she doesn't want Emily to know about the presence inside of her before we head to the maintenance area and get the lockdown down dealt with we see some visions of ATI the janitor he's the next person we need to find the sector elevator can only head to his Department maintenance on our way we cleanse an object of power the Merry-Go-Round horse which gives us the ability to evade we eventually find ATI in his office ATI wants us to work for him for a bit before we get to the directorial override we have to fix some cooling pumps and power generators otherwise the power plant is going to blow up he also gives us access to some side quests on his board to clean up the building we can meet up with the chief of Security erish based on what he says it seems like darling was aware of the his threat before they arrived heading through maintenance we have to find two different areas where we can fix the issues with the sector we eventually free the lockdown controls and have to use the service weapon to lift it this opens the sector elevator up to the different areas of the oldest house when we return to Emily Jesse tells her about her younger brother Dylan when they were kids they found a slide projector that created doorways to other realities a presence in one of the doorways helped to turn the projector off this is the presence that is connected to Jesse the one that she still talks to now this is when the FBC showed up and took Dylan but Jesse managed to escape Jesse said that the FBC took the slide projector but Emily has never heard of it she does tell us that trench and darling were involved in the ordinary event and that there's a large part of the containment sector that's designated to it Emily thinks that the being connected to Jesse is incredibly powerful Marshall went to the research sector then we have to find her now she may have information on P6 one of the candidates of the Prime candidate program a project developed to flesh out future possible directors of the bureau we see a vision of Otti who says that we owe him now because he helped us when we head to the research center this is where the games world the oldest house really begins to open up there are a ton of different little areas to explore one connected to Side Quests and one's not we find some sort of strange being in research that is unkillable we can't damage it we have to lure it into a containment chamber and close the doors on it one of the most interesting parts of control's story and atmosphere is that it has an air of being based around real things not actually real things but it takes some myths urban legends conspiracies and occult aspects and warps it into its own world view even things like the astral plane have already existed as a concept in Old classical religions and was popularized by the rosicrucians it's generally viewed as a plane that exists in between life and death a sort of limbo between rebirth it also has its place in astral projection which is another subject entirely on its own this is just one example of how control incorporates real world ideas or things into its own world this again makes it feel real because the FBC and its dealings are so obscured we feel like any of this could be happening but we just don't know it this gives the world more of a reality more of a solidified place in the world rather than just a fantasy image we head through research and can stumble upon a side quest that lets us bind to the X-ray light box which allows us to take control of enemies we eventually talk to Marshall through an intercom in the research sector we find her in the luck in probability Department she tells us to find Dr darling's HRA lab located in the sector once we find it we have to solve a puzzle involving Punch Cards we have to match up the cards based on the whiteboard drawings around the lab once we activate the HRA machine it shatters the prism used to activate it it was a special Black Rock prism so we need to head to the Quarry located below Jesse asks Marshall about her brother but she tells us that she can only talk about Dylan once the machine is activated the lives that they'll save are more important for now we can head to Blackrock Quarry and cleanse a safe object of power on the way that gives us the shield ability we have to use the Ocean View Motel again to get to Blackrock processing When we arrive at the Quarry we can find a prism and take it back to Marshall she tells us about Dylan who was candidate P6 he was very powerful and was stronger than any other candidate that was being looked at for the position of director his power overtook him and Dylan wasn't fit to be the director she tells Jesse that he's being kept in the containment sector at this point Jesse really begins to lose control of exactly who she can trust she began opening up to people like Emily but the fact that they captured Dylan means she really doesn't know if they're on her side the only thing she can really do now is head to find Dylan we can head through the containment sector and we'll eventually arrive at the panopticon this one is also one of my favorite areas in the game there are so many holding cells here for altered items or objects of power these could be anything from a fridge to a typewriter with such little info information these usually get our mind running with ideas what could these lesser known about altered items be are they harmless or so incredibly powerful that we don't even know about them the vertical environment design is also fantastic as this place goes up quite a few floors we meet Langston who runs the containment sector he tells us to subdue the benicoff TV object of power we head up and end up fighting Salvador who's also been taken over by the hiss once we take him out and cleanse the TV we gain the levitate ability like I said before the levitate ability is one of the most useful in combat it gives us traversal for avoiding attacks and gaining The High Ground on enemies below us but it's also useful for exploration it allows us to access many more areas that we couldn't before the oldest house also holds some secret areas that are hidden tucked away in the environment just finding these hidden spots will give us an ability point and also some mods and chests once we gain the levitate ability we can access the fifth floor of the panopticon upstairs is where Dylan should have been held but he's escaped Emily says that Dylan is with them though he gave himself up to the bureau Dylan has been affected by the hiss but it's different than what they've seen he seems to have control over it at least to an extent Dylan is being kept upstairs he's muttering different things when he talks to Jesse he's speaking as if he isn't Dylan he blames trench and darling for making him not Dylan he says that the hiss have improved him he's clearly being overtaken by The Entity it's also interesting to note here that Dylan is played by Sean Dury who was the original actor for the quantum break lead Dylan names the being that she has a connection with he calls it Polaris and Dylan seems to now Harbor some resentment towards Polaris for not saving him from the bureau Jesse learns that the slide projector is still in the bureau and somehow that's connected to the hiss and Dylan's current state Dylan tries to convince Jesse that the hiss is actually better than the bureau he tries to say that they're against them working from behind the scenes he tells us to go to the prime candidate program to find the truth we can head there and find a video of Dr darling talking about ordinary he speaks specifically about Dylan and how important he is to the bureau we can find transcripts of conversations with Dylan and a list of injuries that people near him sustained it's very clear that Dylan didn't want to be at the bureau and wasn't very Cooperative we then find a room with a ton of information on Jessie herself it seems like she'd been tracked for most of her life they even have recordings of her therapy sessions we can eventually track down the actual report about the ordinary event it tells us that the the slide projector opened a door to other realities and caused The Disappearance of the town's adult population only 17 people survived the event we then find the ordinary awe a massive room that's an exact layout of the town and the radius of the event itself everything here is modeled out then we find something even Wilder that the entire dump from ordinary where Jesse and Dylan found the projector was brought to the FBC we searched Dr darling's lab and find a video diary from him he took the projector to the research sector this leads us to dimensional research to a very strange Corridor that constantly warps and Loops itself ATI has his janitor cart nearby with some music playing though so maybe he knows something about it in his office we find a painting that Taps us into attie's Visions we have to follow these Visions to find him we end up taking a long hanging cab ride deeper into maintenance and along the way here a song song that seems to be sung by the mysterious janitor himself [Music] ATI is at the end of this restricted area he gives us his cassette player with a song on it that will supposedly get us through the maze so that we can find the slide projector heading back through the ashtray Maze We will be pushed and guided by the corridors themselves we have to head through many areas destroying all manner of hiss this is probably one of my favorite sequences in the game the song that ATI gave us is actually called take control a song written for the game by the old gods of Asgard this is the same band featured in Alan Wake that are in all actuality the real life band Poets of the Fall the environment itself in this area is constantly shifting doors are facing downward and walls begin moving the whole thing looks great and is very fun to Traverse on top of that backing it by this Poets of The Fall Song makes it even more impactful it almost feels like the final climb to the height of the mountain where slashing enemies away and taking out goons while listening to this heavy pumping ballad on the other side of the maze we arrive at dimensional research the slide projector still isn't there it's been moved once more we can find a video of darling talking about the projector there was one slide remaining after the ordinary incident darling had been making Expeditions into the reality that the slide opened up they eventually located an entity inside of the slide The Entity is actually hedron a massive being that existed inside of slide 36. here we have to free this entity from the siphons hooked up to it we have to defeat waves of enemies and cleanse different dishes pointed at the machine once this happens polara seems to be gone from Jessie and she's overtaken by the hiss convinced that nothing was behind the poster we get our end credits and the game is over except that's not the end for our story this is a fake ending as we really begin to see once we actually watch what's in the credits different messages overtaking the text on the screen I really like this part and I think it really exemplifies the game pushing itself into reality blurring the lines between what's real and what's fake also the Aesthetics of the text slowly melting away just black and white is just gorgeous and really really well done we take control of Jesse again but she's working in the bureau the new hire at the federal agency we have three tasks to deliver mail tidy up the coffee cups and scan the forms we can do this forever but we eventually find out that our mission is called take control control is clearly a very large theme for the entire game it almost permeates every aspect of the game itself the entire story is based around Jesse taking control and this is her big moment but her entire life she hasn't had control she's been constantly watched by The Bureau not knowing the wiser and control has been rested from her hands the hiss themselves control other people even things like the Seas ability allow us to control the hiss truly all of our powers are about controlling Jesse's innate abilities and to an extent the environment around us it's quite an obvious theme considering it's the title of the game but it's worth noting here but in this moment Jesse finally learns to take control take control of her life of herself make her own destiny rather than leaving it to be manipulated by the Shadows I think this moment is great and something we've all wrestled with from time to time it can be hard to be inside of it to be in the thing and try to see it from the outside to try and see that you need to take the reins rather than let them take you Jesse eventually grabs the director's mail and takes it to him but when she does she sees a vision of Dylan killing her she's then returned to the beginning of the loop this time around she realizes that the hiss were allowed to slip into reality and took trench over he then was controlled and let them into our world through the projector Jesse realizes her real goal is to defeat the hiss the final Loop sees Jesse taking the service weapon and killing trench this is almost a symbolic taking over of the director's position for her finally seeing her realize her role in all of this and accept it she hears darling On The Hotline he tells Jesse that hedron is gone but it was a catalyst not a source she has to go to Dr darling's office that's our next step and inside the motel we see darling performing a wacky song on a projector when Jesse leaves the motel she sees herself with Polaris surrounding her Polaris is still alive she's a part of Jessie now but Polaris was always there hedron on taught Jesse how to awaken Polaris or at least that's what it seems she reconciles with the fact that she isn't sure of any of this and she doesn't really need to be I think this is another staple of Remedy games most of the time it's literally the developers saying to the audience that we shouldn't be so concerned with details the emotion of the thing is what's more important what does the piece say rather than how is the piece saying it trench's need for control over the FBC caused him to become corrupted Jesse didn't meet the same fate she was able to stop the hiss from overtaking her we have one final level where we have to Traverse a warped part of the oldest house and get to Dylan when we do Jesse uses her power to cleanse the hiss from him Dylan is then stable but the hiss are still in the oldest house they need to lift the lock down but it won't be able to be lifted until the hiss have been extinguished the game ends seeing Jesse truly take on her role as director of the Federal Bureau of control now there's a lot still left to be done even after we've beaten the main story of control as the game tells us after we complete its main story your work is not done there are many side quests that we can take on throughout the game these side quests are actually some of my favorite parts of the game we've already talked about some of the ones that you more naturally encounter through the course of your playthrough the short ones that mostly exist to give us new abilities but there's a lot more here that we haven't talked about fridge Duty will see us finding an agent that has been tasked with watching an altered item this is a fridge that you cannot take your eyes off of or it will move Langston the one in charge of the panopticon forgot that he was in there and never swapped him out we can try to rescue him but he gets killed and we have to travel into the altered item here we find a massive being called the former that we have to defeat Langston will give us another mission to track down some altered items that have escaped captivity we have to attract many of these down across the oldest house a traffic light Japanese paper lantern a flamingo that constantly warps hallways all of these further the idea of altered items in general getting to see this many and such a different variety of the para natural really helps to develop a larger and more fleshed Out World for the game it starts to give us a pretty good idea of what's actually out there we can find a completely different area inside of the oldest house where Reya Underhill is currently fighting off an active threshold thresholds are areas where our reality meets other dimensions spots that are thin and where two worlds begin to overlap we can eventually figure out how to defeat some of these mold things walking around and be able to Traverse these hidden mold rooms around the oldest house we can also track down Mr tomasi the one that we fought early in the main missions we can fight off the former again we can find a mirror version of Jesse called ESS Edge and fight her we can even help ATI take on different tasks related to cleaning up the building all of these missions work really well and serve their purpose they exist to broaden the world of control they all felt like really contained little side adventures and they work perfectly most of them did result in little boss fights but I felt like the boss fights were different and special enough that they were worth experiencing there is one Mission here that was not included in the version of control that I played it was only available on the PlayStation 4 digital deluxe edition it features hideo Kojima playing a man by the name of Dr Yoshimi tokyu who has his words translated on tapes and we use them to guide us through some interesting tests there's also an end game event jukebox that sits just off of central executive we can head here and place tokens inside the machine to take on extra challenges these challenges can be quite difficult but will reward us with considerably better mods if we can complete them I think control's story is really well done I do think out of the entire game it's probably the week biggest aspect though it's pretty simple pretty straightforward and there aren't a ton of insane twists along the way at least ones that we don't really see coming the main missions themselves are also quite short the story is intriguing enough for a first entry but I think I'm more excited to see what they do with this in further games and control the World gameplay characters and just about everything else shines a lot brighter than the main story really does before we head on to talk about final thoughts we should really take some time to talk about the DLC of control because it's pretty important to the overall narrative and the remedy connected Universe in general there were two DLC released for control the first was called the foundation the foundation sees us heading to the hotline to speak to the board they've opened a door and maintenance and want us to head to it because the oldest house is in trouble when we get there the door takes us to the foundation the foundation seems to be the Bedrock of the oldest house the possible lowest point in the place it's mostly a massive expanse of twisting and weaving Caverns we soon begin to see visions of Marshall though the same ones from the hotline that we saw trench through this could mean bad news for her we begin to find memos that talk about cave paintings and the foundation that seemed at first to be ancient humans the bureau later thought that it could be something else down there with them this expansion adds a new enemy type in that of the hiss sharpened these lumbering goons kind of look like brutes wielding clubs and seeming very primitive but they're quick moving and can easily defeat us we find the nail some sort of para natural structure in the foundation the board wants us to repair this will prevent a collision with the astral plane we have to take on a massive astral plane challenge at the beginning of this challenge we can choose one of two Powers shape or fracture shape will allow us to pull masses of Crystal from the ground creating platforms and also dealing damage to enemies fracture will allow us to destroy these crystals freeing platforms or even pulling barriers out from under our enemies I thought both of these Powers were a great introduction to a DLC and again remedy comes through with a DLC worthy of your dollar it actually adds something in Story gameplay environment and detail it feels like a genuine extension of the game rather than just attacked on repeat the power that you grab first will decide which of two tracks you go down this will only affect which order you do the DLC missions in not whether you get to experience them or not you will always come back and grab the other power and do those missions second we have to use our new powers to repair different nodes around the foundation these are floating orbs that are broken or have sprouted crystals off of them we can eventually find Emily down in the foundation who tells us that we called her down even though we didn't she tells us that the bleed happening between the astral plane and the oldest house will eventually consume the entire building if we don't repair it after we repair two of the nodes the former shows up and decides to broker an alliance with us this being gives us the other power that the board withheld the board obviously does not like this and doesn't want us to trust the being the former seems to have worked with the board at some point but the two split after the former was blamed for something that we can't understand Jesse wonders at this point Point whether she should trust either the former the board or neither of them she once again finds herself in a position where she can't quite pick out the true motivations of the people that advise her when we cleanse the last of the notes the astral plane seems to begin to shift or collapse we travel back to the nail which is repaired but Emily has figured out that the nail could possibly be a piece of the astral plan the friction between the nail and our world could cause destruction of both planes Jesse then thinks that Marshall's original Expedition and efforts to destroy the nail was possibly right we head to the base of the nail finding Marshall there corrupted she's our final boss we have to defeat her in waves of every variety and manner of his Jesse then cleanses the nail and the board says that the issue is solved we then find out that Marshall tried to destroy the nail because she didn't trust the board they were possibly trying to make a play to control the oldest house and the bureau Jesse decides to lead the FBC her own way there's a couple of side quests that this DLC gives us like Pope wanting us to find five ID cards scattered around the foundation or a more interesting one that sees us trying to cleanse an altered item by jumping back and forth on Platforms in a very 80s synthwave environment this DLC isn't bad and I think it serves as a really good setup for a sequel it sets up the board as a potential antagonist and possibly even the former helping us out in the future we aren't really too sure where alliances lie at the end of the expansion either way it serves as a really good bridge between two entries it's a great way to continue the story of the main game while also setting up a potential sequel the second DLC is a little more interesting at least to me this one was called awe and surrounds itself with the character Alan Wake again if you haven't seen my previous video on Alan Wake I would go check it out now as it's going to provide a lot of background for what I'm going to be talking about here when we head towards the sector elevator we see a vision of Alan Wake much like the ones we saw of trench and the others before but in black and white he's writing a story reading the words that he's writing in his Story Jesse travels to the investigation sector when she senses a distress call this is a new area that was added for this DLC a new wing of the oldest house this sector has seemingly been shut down taken over by something there's a lot of interesting memos in here though investigations into Dr darling some information on containment breaches and even a memo stating that a detective Alex Casey was trying to request all the files relating to the incident at bright Falls this seems to suggest that Alex Casey has now become a real detective just like in wake's novels and a TV show return from Quantum break there was a memo in the base game that specifically listed the bright Falls incident as an awe this DLC explicitly creates the connection between remedies games there's tons of information that the bureau has on the event though a lot of it is redacted they were very much monitoring the situation and keeping an eye on the town there seemed to also be some sort of struggle between a William Kirkland the previous head of Investigations and Zechariah trench Kirkland was the one that was first notified of the bright Falls Awe by Frank breaker we also find some information showing that Alice wake showed up to the bureau regarding something else and a specimen escaped we eventually traveled to the Ocean View Motel but this time Jesse opens another door with a spiral we hear Alan's voice as if he's speaking to someone we get wild visions and see him standing in a room with himself the other version of Alan calls himself Thomas Zane he says he was pretending to be someone else that he's a filmmaker this seems to be some sort of trick possibly by the dark place that Alan still finds himself trapped in Alan takes a drink from this Tom and he says that Alan has found a way to write it this time Tom tells Alan not to worry about his double and Alan gets angry were then pushed from the room and see no more we see another vision of Alan writing his story this time it's about Emil Hartman in his story Hartman was changed and taken over by a dark presence the dark presence we eventually realized that Hartman was taken over by the dark presence after jumping in cauldron Lake in a last-ditch effort to control its power he was then apprehended by the FBC after he became some warped and distorted monster we will battle this monster multiple times throughout the course of our DLC he is affected by the Light just like in Allen wake there are also spots of Darkness that we can shine Away by using different light sources they mostly covered doors and bar our entry we fight Hartman once in a very dark room having to power the lights on in the area and drive him off another time with a train and finally at the end we get the power to trap and defeat him this fight can be a little difficult because we have to turn on all the lights without staying in the dark for too long once we do that we can damage him but he'll eventually knock the lights out once again once we finally get enough damage on him and defeat him Jesse tries to promote Langston to run the investigation sector but he doesn't want to be involved he does say that there has been activity reported in bright Falls Washington but that the date of the activity says a few years in the future agent Estevez is on the scene though we then hear Alan speaking once again the biggest city motion leave the alarms the effect must follow the cause this whole DLC is really interesting and I believe it's set up for what remedy plans to do in the future before we talk about that though I just want to again commend this DLC for what the foundation did as well it doesn't exactly add any powers like that one did but it does add some new enemy types and includes the dark mechanic from Alan Wake it all works really well and using one DLC to set up a sequel to control while also using the other to set up a sequel to Alan Wake is fantastic I'd like to use this section of the video to just very briefly go over controls connections to the remedy Universe thus far this game has established itself the most with bringing these three games together and trying to make them one shared world now obviously the biggest connection that we have here is that Alan Wake literally appears in control there is so much information that we're given on Alan Wake and bright falls in the awe DLC plus it also seems like control recontextualizes everything in that story the light switch and the typewriter even could now be looked at as objects of power we find proof that Allen was also possibly looked at for the prime candidate program not only that but there's tons of little connections as well if we look back at Alan wake's American Nightmare one of the songs can be reversed to say it will happen again in a town called ordinary ordinary is obviously the place where Jesse and Dylan found the slide projector control also does slightly connect to Quantum break as well I think these connections are a little bit less obvious probably because remedy doesn't own the IP so they can't begin incorporating it into their games so outright not yet at least unless a deal was reached between the two companies but in control Dylan states that he dreams of Mr door a being that sees many worlds side by side endlessly shifting between them kind of seems like Mr hatch right Allen also says that he needs an invisible door which is a bit more of a loose connection but it would be a Surefire way out of the dark place there's also tons of fan theories like the fact that Courtney Hope plays both Jesse faden and Beth Wilder and that this new reality in control could be Jack saving Beth like he said he would at the end of the game there really are tons of tiny little details in control that connect to the rest of the world this game itself sort of opens Pandora's Box on the entire thing it's also heavily implied in the awe DLC that Alan Wake orchestrated the events of control that he was the one that convinced Alice to head to the FBC that he used his writings and the powers of cauldron Lake to give Jesse a crisis and create the hero that he needed to set him free there's just so much to unpack here and it really sets up an incredibly interesting foundation for what's to come in the universe control is a fantastic game it is the quintessential remedy project they took everything that they learned with their previous games and tried to improve on every area that they could I don't think this worked perfectly clearly I have issues with the main story that the game presents it does little in the way of surprise but the world atmosphere Aesthetics gameplay and mechanics are all top tier the oldest house as a setting is incredibly unique it feels like nothing else we've seen before blending multiple styles of architecture and design it also heavily encourages exploration so many little details are hidden around the world of control there are many that we didn't even talk about in this video because it would just draw it out to a ridiculous length every document furthers your own imagination the game wants you to think about things think about the world before you got here think about how the world itself got here it also wants you to feel like this place has been lived in and you're not only uncovering secrets in the game but secrets that have been hit into the world forever the atmosphere of the game is Top Notch the game uses color incredibly well constantly contrasting the Bland boring offices and backgrounds of the oldest house with huge pops of color to guide your vision and just create an interesting image even the title cards for different areas look great the flat white text jumps out on the screen creating the perfect snapshot for entering a new Zone the Aesthetics in general create something new and interesting a design which uses this classic old technology feeling like it's been set back decades in the past but the fbc's knowledge is just so Advanced past anything that the general public is even aware of the game is also just terrific to play it feels good to fly around and toss objects at groups of hiss dodging attacks from flying enemies only to unload tons of bullets into them and then seize them to do your bidding always feels awesome there's a ton of different ways that we can use our powers and that variety always makes for something interesting what control does for the future of Remedy games is also Top Notch creating a universe in a shared world for the developers to play around with and tell some very interesting stories in is really exciting the whole package just works even though I harped on the story a little bit doesn't mean I don't like the game not by a long shot the game is still fantastic and amazing I think the story is just par for the course though for a first entry in a series but the whole package is something that you absolutely cannot miss I've played through control three or four times now and every time I find new information or am surprised by little details that I never picked up on before remedy really brought their a game when mixing in different forms of media even though control never got its own book or prequel series or comic it feels like that amount of information and story is in control just hidden around the oldest house control got pretty great reviews is the original version still holding an 85 percent for the PC version on Metacritic most reviewers praised its combat setting atmosphere and design some critics pointed out that the story ended abruptly and that its Mission structure was odd though fans were just as happy about remedy's new project the game had sold 2 million units in just over a year and had become remedy's fastest growing IP since Max Payne by November of 2022 the game had reached 3 million units sold control was nominated for tons of awards at Golden joystick the game awards the dice Awards too many to list here it did go on to win the Critics Choice Award at Golden joystick best art Direction at the game awards and the action game of the year at the dice Awards remedy has a ton of projects under their belt right now but they seem to be planning a sequel to control that's larger and with a bigger budget they're also planning a multiplayer spin-off so it certainly seems like this series isn't going to be dead in the water or take over a decade to find its new entry with that being said that's the last we've seen of the remedy shared Universe for now with Alan Wake 2 on the horizon something is sure to be coming soon remedies shared universe is something incredibly interesting I do have to admit that we seem to be pretty early into it there's a lot more to be done here and remedy just seems to be getting started the games within the universe are all great even though Quantum break fell a bit short for me it's still incredibly interesting even with remedy's worst projects they still try to do something new they're an ambitious studio and I'm very excited to see what they do moving forward their clear strength is creating interesting worlds so what better way to utilize that Talent than to create a universe across multiple games I don't really think we've seen anything like this before in gaming at least not on this scale the closest thing I can think of would honestly be Legacy of Kane the two characters having their main series and then crossing over in defiance but even if quantum break doesn't make a main story appearance I can see remedy eventually crossing over Alan Wake and control directly in a main game obviously these two characters are incredibly unique and fans would eat this up but what exactly will come for the future of Remedies games the next game they have on their slate is Alan Wake too obviously I'm really excited to see what they're doing with this entry though we haven't seen much of it it is supposed to release in 2023 the team has already said that this will be their first attempt at a full horror game remedy is already great at atmosphere and they've toyed with the idea of horror for a long time this is obviously a great fit for them Alan Wake is already a great Universe to do it in as well if I had to speculate on the direction the series will take I think we'll see a lot more of control in Alan Wake too I think that we're going to see a more grizzled Allen wake in the sequel as well having been trapped in the dark place for a long time at this point as for control I think Jesse will have to concern herself with the board in the next entry I think she'll have a larger antagonist in the world will get much grander in scope either way these games are incredibly exciting there's a lot of Promise here and I can't wait to see what remedy does with this whether the game's really fully cross over or not is up to them to decide and I don't think it really matters in the end because the real purpose of making this universe is just to show that there is a larger world out there larger than we could possibly imagine in any case we will be getting some interesting projects from remedy moving forward and I can't wait to see what they have in store but we'll talk about that next time bye dad

Channel: YourFavoriteSon

Views: 212,059

Keywords: Remedy, Control, Quantum Break, Alan Wake, Control Review, Alan Wake review, Quantum Break review, remedy retrospective, alan wake retrospective, Quantum Break retrospective, Control retrospective, Alan Wake gameplay, alan wake 2, control gameplay, control 2, quantum break gameplay, alan wake story, control story, remedy connected universe, remedy universe, remedy universe story, remedy connected

Id: G2LbplhAOM0

Length: 229min 15sec (13755 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023