The beard tech in Alan Wake 2 is borderline inconceivable. Chasing realism may be the great folly(icle) of the games industry, but by god is it captivating when Remedy’s doing it. It was hard not to be entranced by a demo of FBI agent Saga Anderson searching storm-battered woods to find Wake, who’s been missing for 13 years.
Remedy is always playing with new tech, that meant refactoring its in-house engine to stream in data in an instant. It was a necessary change to let players enter Anderson’s ‘mind place’ at the press of a button – a cabin players can walk around in and puzzle through the game’s core mystery. There’s a wall where you can place clues with red string threading them together, helping you visualise the case. Another button-press and you’re right back to the real world – or as real as anything in gets.
