Despite 13 years passing between mainline installments, the enemies in Alan Wake 2 are keeping one specific detail that was present in the original game, and that is having some incredibly talkative enemies. It's one touch that makes Alan Wake 2 feel like a direct follow-up to the original game regardless of the large gap between them, and is a detail that makes them stick out from other horror titles.
The original game having some particularly chatty enemies that are not just boss encounters helps set the game's unsettling atmosphere as beyond their appearance already resembling many people, they appear to have some level of consciousness that comes through in their speech—even if much of said speech is about wanting to kill the protagonist. This leads to memorable moments in Alan Wake as it surely will with the sequel.
Vocal Enemies Work in Alan Wake Even if They Can Easily Go Wrong
Vocal enemies in video games are not uncommon, especially in action games or shooters, but not so much in horror games. Speaking in titles like the original Resident Evil games or Silent Hill is often reserved just for cutscenes, even if the former series began to introduce more chatty bosses in entries after the PS1 era.
Having the opponents speak to the protagonist can risk taking players out of the moment, ruining any tension that had already been built up when the only company one had was silence. In the worst-case scenario, talking enemies whose original intention is to frighten might elicit a chuckle instead, and there are instances of this happening.
A prominent horror title that also has talkative enemies is Deadly Premonition, and that title's use of what is a similar detail on the surface can best be described as goofy. Although using the term goofy describes most things in Deadly Premonition, having the enemies speak further detracts from any potential scares they could have given.
Similar to Alan Wake, they utter some statements in distorted voices, but the subject is more about their suffering and move in contorted positions in Deadly Premonition. Those two deviations and how they are executed lead many humanoid enemies from that game to feel less frightful and more ridiculous. The voice acting for them is not the best, and they move toward the player in this lumbering way making them look silly. Alan Wake could have fallen into some adjacent pitfalls, as most of the enemies in that game look like everyday people.
One reason it succeeds is that enemies are aggressive, giving the impression that they want to make good on their threats to kill the protagonist. Another is that while the enemies fought were people before a force in Alan Wake called the Darkness consumed them, their ability to move and speak like many people makes it feel rather unsettling to put them down in a way that doesn't apply to something like a zombie as they are often portrayed as rotting entities acting without any thought.
Why Vocal Enemies Can Work
Alan Wake is not alone regarding how to make vocal enemies frightening. Arguably the most effective use of chatty enemies in horror games comes from Condemned: Criminal Origins because that title's opponents are in the state they are for more grounded reasons, giving a clear picture of what kind of place players are in. It arguably also does a better job disempowering players as most of the playtime is spent using easily broken melee weapons against people in dilapidated environments who appear far more physically imposing than the game's protagonist.
There's a brutality in that game that is unsettling because combat is a frantic scramble, and some of that effect would have been there if enemies simply grunted or yelled. Vocalizing their intent serves as a way of reminding players they are just fighting people, and while Alan Wake does not have that same pacing in combat, the detail works in it for similar reasons because although the Darkness is a force that possesses people succumb to act violently, there would be something lost if their voice vanished along with their humanity.
Contrary to Condemned, whose setting has implications of socio-economic disparities that leave people as shells of their former selves, Alan Wake has this feeling where otherwise well-off people cannot help but give into their most violent impulses, and with the small-town setting, it makes it feel like the entire populace is consciously against the player meaning no place is safe.
Preserving the talkative enemies in Alan Wake 2 presents an opportunity to instill that feeling in players again because there is nothing like it in contemporary horror games. Not much has been shown regarding Alan Wake 2's gameplay, but how it is structured could create a sense of dread comparable to both the first title and even Condemned to some degree. This is because one half of the game is set in the original town of Bright Falls with FBI agent Saga Anderson, and the other half is told from the titular character Alan Wake's perspective as he is trapped in a nightmare version of New York City called the Dark Place.
It presents an opportunity to carry both the small-town horror found in the first game while having an element of the dilapidated urban horror, even if any parallels to other games might be a coincidence as Alan Wake 2 has made its inspirations clear. What is important is keeping that chattiness in place because it offers a bit of a reminder that the enemies being fought had been people at one point, and there is enough conscious thought to be vocal, even if it is vocalizing an intent to kill.
Alan Wake 2 is shaping up to be a great follow-up to the original game, using the foundation set by it to create a title worth the long wait. With some humanoid enemies revealed to carry more monstrous traits, it would be interesting to see if they are just as vocal to give an eerie reminder of what they used to be.
Alan Wake 2 launches October 17 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
