Alan Wake 2 is set to receive its second expansion in a few days’ time in the form of The Lake House, and developer Remedy Entertainment has said that it’s going to be more similar to the base game’s traditional survival horror structure than the first DLC, Night Springs, was.
Speaking with Xbox Wire, game director Kyle Rowley explained that Alan Wake 2″ The Lake House will be structured like a “more traditional survival horror game”, which means plenty of focus on exploration across a single, large setting.
“Much like some of the larger missions inside the main game of Alan Wake 2, this mission is structured like a more traditional survival horror game,” Rowley said. “There is a large open structure for the player to explore, secrets to discover and dangerous enemies to try and survive against. Narrative obviously plays a large role in the expansion – as it did in the main game – so it is definitely worth exploring and trying to locate the many narrative objects scattered throughout the environment.”
Meanwhile, players can also expect The Lake House to introduce an entirely new enemy type. Dubbed the Painted, we saw glimpses of this horrifying new foe in the expansion’s recently released trailer.
“For The Lake House we wanted to introduce a new, different kind of enemy from those found in the main game,” Rowley explained. “It’s important to us that our enemies follow on from themes found in and around the part of the game that they are revealed – whether that be the water-themed enemy, the ‘Diver’ located at the Valhalla Nursing Home, or the Taken Wolves that are found in and around the Cauldron Lake Forest.
“With that in mind, the Painted are very much themed around one of the core elements inside the Lake House – paint! They can move in and out of the supernatural paint on surfaces, hunting the player as they do so and have devastating melee attacks that deal significant amounts of damage.”
With The Lake House seeing Federal Bureau of Control agent Kiran Estevez (played by Janina Gavankar) stepping up as the main playable protagonist, you can also expect some new weaponry. Specifically, the DLC will feature a new FBC-specific weapon, while Estevez’s base weapons will also do more damage compared to Saga and Alan in the base game.
“Much like Saga, Estevez is a federal agent, so she is quite capable with standard issue firearms,” Rowley said. “That said, we did add a new FBC-specific weapon to this expansion which can be used to deal with slightly more… paranatural entities. Estevez’s base weapons also deal a bit more damage than Saga’s, so Taken enemies go down a little faster.”
Alan Wake 2: The Lake House launches on October 22 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Remedy Entertainment will also release a free update for the base game to add an Assist Mode, among other things. Read more on that through here.