After months of rumours, Control‘s latest DLC expansion has been confirmed as an Alan Wake crossover.
The connection between the two game universes was teased by early easter eggs in Control and a DLC image depicting the logo art for Alan Wake. Now, that Easter egg is cracking and we’re about to see what’s inside.
In PlayStation’s August State of Play presentation, Control‘s connection to Alan Wake became much clearer. The game’s second DLC chapter will feature a crossover with the 2010 game. The trailer gave brief glimpses at a haunting darkness, mysterious shaking objects and the return of Alan himself.
If you’ve never played Alan Wake before (and you really should check it out), here’s everything you need to know about the game’s story, characters and lore before you dive into Control’s new expansion.
Alan Wake follows famous thriller writer Alan Wake on a trip to Bright Falls with his wife, Alice. When he arrives in the town, a mysterious old woman gives him the keys to a rickety old cabin on the edge of a lake. It’s here Alice reveals the trip’s intent is to help Alan get over his writer’s block and begin work on his next novel.
After a fight, Alan leaves the cabin — only for Alice to cry out in panic as she’s dragged beneath the lake’s surface. Alan arrives too late to save her, but dives into the lake in the hopes of reaching her. He blacks out and wakes in a dark forest surrounded by shadowy figures and the pages of a mysterious manuscript he has no memory of writing. Later, he’s told the clifftop cabin sunk into the lake several years ago and he can’t possibly have stayed there in the first place.
The living darkness soon infects the entire town of Bright Falls, and it’s up to Alan and his trusty flashlight to dispel the shadow creatures (known as the “Taken”) to save his wife and salvage the town.
Throughout the course of the game, Alan discovers the lake is home to an entity known as the Dark Presence. This Presence has infected the lake and used Alan’s writings to alter the nature of reality. When Alan attempted to rescue Alice, he’d instead spent time trapped underneath the lake churning out reality-altering fiction at the behest of the Presence.
The appearance of the ancient cabin and the kidnapping of Alice was only so the Presence could make use of Alan’s skills as a novelist to change the world.
At the conclusion of the game, Alan realises there has to be a balance for this much darkness in the world. To control the spread of the Presence beyond Bright Falls he trades places with Alice, locking himself into a prison (known as the Dark Place) beneath the lake. There, he plans to rewrite reality and force the Presence out of existence.
Subsequent DLC chapters explored the abstract reality of life in the Dark Place as Alan battles a dark reflection of himself and begins work on a new story called Return. (Originally, this may have been intended to lead into Alan Wake 2.)
While Alan Wake’s American Nightmare picked at this thread, pitting Alan against another dark doppelganger called Mr. Scratch, it didn’t provide a satisfying conclusion to Alan’s story. This game has a happier ending than the first game, with Alan and Alice reunited at last — but the game’s narrator indicates these events may just be one of Alan’s many dreams beneath the lake.
It’s here that his tale concludes — with Alan still trapped under the lake, at the mercy of the Dark Presence.
Expect Control to dive deep into this story when its “AWE” expansion releases later this month. After ten long years, Alan Wake fans may finally be getting the closure they deserve as Alan’s story continues.
Control’s second expansion launches on August 27 for the Epic Games Store on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Given this is a global release, Australian users can expect the update to launch later in the day or well into the night. Stay tuned to social media for further news about an exact launch time.
Leave a Reply