Alan Wake 2: The Lake House Review (Xbox Series X|S)

It was a long old wait for Alan Wake 2 to finally launch on Xbox late last year, and now Remedy is wrapping up the game's DLC plan with The Lake House expansion. Yep, it's finally time to say goodbye to the second instalment of Alan Wake - and the team has spent its final few moments here building out the Remedy universe to good effect.

Alan Wake 2: The Lake House begins in those oh-so familiar Pacific Northwestern woodlands we've all come to know and love from our time with the series. The DLC's introduction feels like a passing of the torch if you will, a little goodbye to the weird and wonderful world of Alan Wake. The Lake House is well and truly back in Control territory - so much so that this expansion almost feels like a prequel to Control 2 rather than another slice of Alan Wakey goodness.

While we have mixed feelings on this being our last taste of Alan Wake 2 action, The Lake House is another bold and confident step to build out the Remedy-verse, so we can't knock it too much. You play as FBC agent Kiran Estevez, as you explore a mysterious government facility that lies mostly beneath the surface. It all starts out as a slow, considered affair - where much of your time will be spent exploring the research base to uncover clues and find out what the heck's going on down there.

If you like a good document read and passcode-based puzzle to solve, you'll be well served by the first hour or so of The Lake House - this one is a slow build and isn't afraid to gradually ease you back in. Fear not though, things get suitably survival-horror the further you delve into it.

Once you've managed to acquire security access on the ground floor, you'll be plunged into varying levels of terror as you move further into the research base. When combat kicks in, this DLC mostly sticks to the standard Alan Wake 2 ruleset; shine your light, blast away the demons and take a deep breath. Aside from the odd awkward encounter due to The Lake House's more confined play spaces, this DLC still feels good to play, and combat here packs a real punch when things get feisty.

There's a new weapon and enemy type packed in as well, and while we won't spoil those elements too much, these lads are damn satisfying to put down. The Lake House is generous with its firepower and ammunition, which is good, because you'll come up against plenty of enemies the further into the DLC you go. We did notice that we were low on health quite a bit though — healing items seemed vary scarce — so it's worth being cautious here as you explore the building. Stock up on as much stuff as you can!

Story-wise, we felt like we understood about 30% of what was happening here - standard Remedy affair then! No, but seriously, The Lake House isn't afraid to get into the weeds when it comes to tying together elements of Remedy's connected universe, and while we picked up on plenty of links to Alan Wake and Control, this one does feel purpose built for the theorists of this world. Remedy super fans will love all of this; occasional manuscript collectors may be somewhat confused by what's going on.

We did enjoy one particular interaction with Ed Booker - one of the side characters from the base game. We won't spoil the whole conversation here, but the way Estevez and Booker played off each other as they both had wildly different thoughts on what was going on, was neat to witness. The performances were great, as they are throughout this DLC, and the whole convo felt genuine. Large parts of this can be entirely missed, so be on the look out for the nutty writer stuck in a big old concrete block within The Lake House facility!

The expansion concludes with a chunky story dump and a typical Remedy boss fight; that's to say we didn't hugely enjoy the game's final combat section. There's nothing wrong with it, and we managed to get through it on normal difficulty (after a good few deaths, admittedly), but it just felt very generic compared to the rest of The Lake House. If there's one major complaint we have with recent Remedy games it's that they don't seem to have a grasp on how to end things combat-wise, and this Alan Wake 2 expansion continues that trend. The Lake House isn't the team's worst offender - we just wish this studio would put as much creativity into its final fights as it does the rest of its games, or just skip the idea entirely.