If it matters at all - I don't care that she's black in the slightest. And I agree that this isn't even really a case of race swapping. What does give me pause however is simply including a second playable character, shifiting the focus away from Alan himself. I mean sure, it may still be a great story, I may be completely wrong, perhaps it all still works great. But in the first game being in solely Alan's shoes as everything was getting stranger and darker and scarier was so important... I just can't help but feel like having a second protagonsit will ruin that laser focus, that narrow perspective that so helped build the mood.

And yes, it is a bit hard not to see a certain agenda at work in including her. It's a messed up situation we are in now, because it could be just an honest creative decision, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there have been so many instances of stuff like what we could read recently revealed about the new Blade movie ("One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead"), that there's really nothing crazy about seeing this inclusion in such light.

The fact she was originally planned to be white in the same role says it wasn't designed that way for that reason, correct? Whether she was changed for political reasons or not that it was always the plan to have dual protagonists.

As someone actually playing the game I can assure you it works perfectly for the story. You play Wake in the dark place, where he was left at the end of the original, and you play the person kinda-sorta trying to save him who is effected by his writing inside the dark place. You get him and his impact on the world at the same time. It's quite perfect.

Fair enough. But you're telling me one thing, ReynardFox another. I'm going ot judge for myself, but not anytime soon, unless Santa brings me a PS5.

The game doesn't seem good though, sure it looks pretty but everything else seems worse, at least it's not what I want from an Alan Wake game. I like my Resident Evil/Silent Hill types but this is not even like that even though it has the appearance of it. Like most AAA games of late it also seems to be written by 16 year olds, come on, where are your adult intelligent writers, this is just dumb, and it treats the player like it too.

I mean he has an obvious political agenda, and reviews are generally praising the writing, but believe what you like.

Having any opinion in these matters always results in being accused of that by one or the other side of this wretched culture war. I try not to engage in such bulverism.

Doesn't mean much to me. Reviews were also praising Control, which to my great disappointment was crap.

I didn't say I believe him over you, just that different people are saying different things, so I will (eventually) see for myself. If that's not reasonable enough for you, I don't know what to tell you.

How is pointing corrupt cops/political leaders woke, and not just the right thing to do?? Maybe we are talking about a different woke.
I saw a couple of user opinions shit on the game for bad writing and how Alan Wake feels like a side character now. None of them had a political agenda. By the way, I'm not saying the game is terrible. I will know how Alan Wake 2 is once I play it.
I like control quite a bit. I didn't think it was terrible at all. It's a little repetitive but fun.

It looks like Alan Wake 2 is DRM-Free on Epic. I'm kinda tempted...

You're right we shouldn't be upset about something being changed for the pure purpose of DEI, we should embrace it, should just replace all our characters with diverse black midget gay strong women characters..

Right? I mean... Disney is proving it's so very popular...

It's not like we don't want proper escapism from the forced politics down our throats. And the more it's shoved at us, the less we'll buy it. Just look at the comic book industry, Disney, and Hollywood and how they are floundering. Yet Manga, Japanese anime, Korean manga, and other things are flourishing.

Yes, but don't forget to look at the note: controllers won't work and cutscenes can't be skipped. Also don't expect that the upcoming DLCs will work without the laucher,

I can live with those. DLC will be a problem if they will indeed require a launcher.

Also considering that Alan Wake Remaster is not even on Steam, a DRM-Free AW2 on Epic is probably as good as it's ever going to get.

Making me little tempted as well. Thank you for letting us know.

Like many AAA game releases, there's an initial flood of amazing reviews followed by... a second wave of less amazing reviews. I've been watching a number of post-release reviews and IMO a lot of the early reviews seemed much too positive.

This game has nothing to do with dei or esg. You do you, bro. But you're wrong about remedy.

Perhaps also take into account that RaynardFox did not play the game, just "watched some gameplay footage"