As the second piece of DLC for Remedy’s psychological action thriller, “The Writer” continues Alan’s journey through the darkest of night via the exploration of Wake’s internal state of mind. Picking up where “The Signal” left off, Wake navigates a path through the fractured self exposed by the retail release.
By film or book or videogame, subject matter opens as many possibilities as it does the potential to fall into cliche, and I’ll suggest that once again Alan Wake manages to work within the trappings of the horror genre rather deftly considering how much of a tightrope that proposition creates – my investment in the character of both Wake and the world he is fighting to understand keeps psychological exploration from dipping into cheese.
That doesn’t mean that Wake’s latest outing cuts the fresh path the series seems capable of trailblazing however. But “The Writer” does cut a circular path through the events of the game to date to reach a rather inevitable conclusion, offering players a carnival ride through familiar memories, concerned with finding the significance in character relationships and happenings established by the game proper.
