Highlights

  • Alan Wake 2's Night Springs DLC introduces new and unexpected narrative twists on established characters and plots.
  • Dune: Awakening ventures into a radically changed alternate reality with unique open-world MMO gameplay.
  • Both titles exemplify the potential for 'What If?' games exploring different storylines.

The main portion of 2024's Summer Game Fest recently wrapped up, and there were a multitude of exciting upcoming titles shown off during this year's event. These covered a wide range of new, unexpected projects in the works, to long-awaited ones. One of the latter was for Alan Wake 2 and its first major expansion. Remedy Entertainment Creative Director, Sam Lake, presented the trailer for Alan Wake 2's Night Spring DLC and announced that it would be released shortly after the show. While there were various fan theories leading up as to what it would comprise, the DLC sees players take on the role of three established Remedy characters in scenarios that split off from the previous central tale.

In a similar case, developer Funcom's forthcoming Dune: Awakening will be an open-world MMO title set in a differing reality from the core story. In this one, it seems that main character Paul Atreides never came to be born, and thus did not inherit his role as the prophesied future leader, uniting the Fremen of Arrakis against Paul's ancient nemesis, House Harkonnen, and the forces of the Emperor. With both titles, though, the angles verging from their main narratives into more 'What If?' territory highlight the vast potential for games exploring stories and designs of this nature.

Alan Wake 2 's Night Springs DLC is available now. Dune: Awakening does not yet have a firm release date, though the studio plans to continue to provide updates via its Direct episodes.

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Alan Wake 2's Night Springs and Dune Awakening's Alternate Reality Approach Show How 'What If' Games Could Work

Alan Wake 2's Night Springs DLC Puts a New Twist on Familiar Faces

Adhering to Remedy's penchant for utilizing heavy meta aspects, Alan Wake 2's Night Springs DLC is framed around "three stylized episodes, transforming familiar characters and settings into something entirely new and unexpected." The setup is that these stories are actually versions of scripts for the Night Springs anthology TV series that has been part of Alan Wake and the subsequent Remedy Connected Universe since the original 2010 title.

As detailed in official information, Alan is apparently writing these plots in his desperate attempts to outwit The Dark Presence, and they spring from his overworked imagination and memories, impacting and changing reality as per the warping effects of the Dark Place dimension he has been trapped in. Night Springs features variations of the figures of Sheriff Tim Breaker, local waitress and self-proclaimed Number One Alan Wake fan, Rose Marigold, and Control protagonist, Jesse Faden. Each must navigate a personalized scenario, putting a fresh spin on established events and locations within the greater setting.

Dune Awakening's Break From Established Elements Sets Up an Entirely Different Arrakis

In the latest trailer for Dune: Awakening, series hero Paul Atreides is depicted describing his tortured visions of the future, many ending in tragic devastation. But within these rippling timelines, there is one where he did not exist at all, and thus never became the destined messiah of Arrakis and rose to power. Instead, it seems players will take on the role of characters who inhabit a universe where this and other various key points and events have diverged in a major way from the recognized plot.

Paul outlines in the story trailer, how, in Dune: Awakening, House Atreides survived the betrayal and conflict on Arrakis, resulting in a completely different political and cultural landscape, and a "war of assassins" that has decimated the Fremen populace. But the spice, as ever, must still flow and players will be tasked with surviving and building their settlements and holdings in this iteration of Dune that Paul and other longstanding narrative components are absent from or radically changed.

Marvel's What If...? series is probably one of the most recognizable and successful examples of the use of alternate periods and storylines within a broad IP. With Dune: Awakening and Alan Wake 2's Night Springs DLC, there are now more games incorporating the device, and showing the potential for wildly divergent versions of their respective worlds to give fans a chance to look and play through some creative portrayals of them.