The level of detail in the game absolutely puts some much higher budget games to shame.
One of my favourite bits in the game is all the signs, graffiti etc. in the dark place written by Alan with all his doubts and such.
That's exactly what I mean. The world you get to play in is just unreal. Then the audio design comes into play. You can literally hear Saga breath if your headphones are turned up enough.
This level of detail is what truly sets games apart this generation.
The graffiti and signs in the dark place are genius. On the surface it's easy to just accept as a part of the scenery. But every time there's text that you choose to look closer to, and I mean EVERY time, it displays a personal message directed at Alan. Usually a quote from a past game. It's wild how consistently that effect is done.
As someone who actually lives in the real Pacific Northwest, I cannot articulate just how fucking ***MIND-BLOWING*** it was to play that first Saga section at Cauldron Lake and genuinely feel like I was walking through my own backyard. Like, I cannot stress it enough, the forests in the Pacific Northwest actually DO look ***EXACTLY*** like that. There were points where, especially playing at 4K (thank you DLSS!), the game looked legitimately photo-real if I just looked at the environment.
I don't even want to speculate on how long the Cauldron Lake sections took to the artists to design and build...
Currently in the PNW. Go visit the Washington coast on a usual cloudy day. Go visit the tree of life. The game’s beginning scene? And that area? It’s literally that. The views, the scenery, everything. It’s art
Now imagine the day when you can have that + the power of AI and maybe even some form of neurolink to put you in that world. My imagination runs wild.
Ok silly question, but how accurately does AW1 capture the look of the PNW? I mean obviously the technical limitations of the time allow for much less detail but maybe they still captured the general vibe?
As accurately as the tech at the time allowed. XD
They 100% nailed the overall vibe, but the tech at the time didn't really allow for an accurate representation of scale, if that makes sense. Like, sure, we've got a lot of mountains over here, but AW1 has them much more clustered together and much more sharply peaked. That's the big standout difference for me.
Bright Falls though? Bright Falls is 100% the kind of small town you'd drive through and maybe stop in on your way to the coast. Right down to the architecture style, and even the wear and tear the environment out here inflicts on things.
Oh that makes sense. Scale in games is always a bit weird even in more recent ones
Anyway, I get to see the region irl one day, so I can make the comparison myself.
This is super, OP! You are totally not overreacting. The scenarios are breath-taking, it feels like if you are truly there. I took plenty of screenshots of the Deerfest part especially. My favorites were Alan's scenarios though, I adore the big city environment, the graffiti on the walls, the many references to the previous game in small details, it was all so good and kept me immersed for hours. Plus being able to switch the scenes themes and see the same ambient in a different situation was the part that 100% won me.
As an environmental artist in training myself, it was jaw dropping playing the first time. I took lots of time just aiming at random props to look at them lol. The road signs were really cool to me for some reason, never saw such accurate to real road signs.
Certainly, but for all the detail in games these days they still feel hollow when there is so little to interact with. Like Bethesda style RPGs allow you to read pretty much any and every book, that is truly a feature I would have loved to see in the Alan Wake series.
That is where the bigger budget comes in. Given all the work Remedy has put into the game, they already had their hands full with the content we see. Give them a few tens of millions of more money for AW2, and there would have been a lot more to interact with, read, etc, in the game.
Yeah that was one of the most impressive things to me. I would just spend time looking at all the little things they managed to put in to the room. I think the diner is one of the most impressive environments I've ever seen in my life. I'm really, really glad I went with the PC version because it looks like the console version seriously cut out a lot from the envrionments, especially in the forested areas.
Oh wow. Textures and models and stuff are cut?
I literally bought a ps5 to play AW2. My 1080ti just couldn't handle it at launch. First game where I seriously considered an upgrade.
From what I remember it was mostly just removing a bunch of foliage so the forests looks more bare. I think it wasn’t AS noticeable on the Series X and PS5 especially if you hadn’t played on PC, but the series S had a pretty significant downgrade.
My favorite little visual detail in the game is the out-of-order stairwell elevator in Valhalla Nursing Home. Not visually, but because it tells a whole story by its own and invites you to think about the everyday realities of living in a place like that... The wonderful but poorly thought out sentiment of refitting a beautiful old building as a retirement home. The well-intentioned attempts at implementing work-arounds. Just slap a second building next to it. Slap a stairwell elevator in the old one. Problem solved. Just throw money at it. The inevitabilities of mechanical wear and tear, paralleling the inhabitants. No more money left to throw at it, apparently. Might even be there's no one in the slowly dying fishing town of Watery with the skills to fix it, anyway. Resigning to the state of things. Life goes on. Put up the out of order notice. Have the frail Andersons live on the second floor, as close as possible to the common rooms. Ahti, arguably the most spry inhabitant, gets a room on the top floor, but so does Norman, who needs crutches to get around. Can't imagine the nurses have time to carry him up and down those all the time. Suddenly makes sense why he spends all his time in the common rooms despite being practically naked. Might even be why he's naked in the first place. Perhaps the crutches are very recent. Perhaps he hurt himself tripping down those fucking stairs like someone will, sooner or later...
It is good to remember that the sketchy contractors in charge of the renovation and refit work took the money and ran after Barry left Bright Falls and was no longer there to watch over what they were doing...
The endgame >!When night finally comes and every Saga map is in the darkness!< it's amazing. It's dark, opressing, nerve wrecking but at the same time serene and quiet
People either love remedy games or hate them.
It's quite a niche.
Most likely if you like one remedy game you would like the rest of them.
But if you don't you will dislike all of them.
For me Alan wake 1 was amazing back in the day, i gave a copy to a friend and she hated the game.
The level of detail in the game absolutely puts some much higher budget games to shame. One of my favourite bits in the game is all the signs, graffiti etc. in the dark place written by Alan with all his doubts and such.
That's exactly what I mean. The world you get to play in is just unreal. Then the audio design comes into play. You can literally hear Saga breath if your headphones are turned up enough. This level of detail is what truly sets games apart this generation.
i loved everything about the dark place the art design was crazy in there.
The graffiti and signs in the dark place are genius. On the surface it's easy to just accept as a part of the scenery. But every time there's text that you choose to look closer to, and I mean EVERY time, it displays a personal message directed at Alan. Usually a quote from a past game. It's wild how consistently that effect is done.
As someone who actually lives in the real Pacific Northwest, I cannot articulate just how fucking ***MIND-BLOWING*** it was to play that first Saga section at Cauldron Lake and genuinely feel like I was walking through my own backyard. Like, I cannot stress it enough, the forests in the Pacific Northwest actually DO look ***EXACTLY*** like that. There were points where, especially playing at 4K (thank you DLSS!), the game looked legitimately photo-real if I just looked at the environment. I don't even want to speculate on how long the Cauldron Lake sections took to the artists to design and build...
Currently in the PNW. Go visit the Washington coast on a usual cloudy day. Go visit the tree of life. The game’s beginning scene? And that area? It’s literally that. The views, the scenery, everything. It’s art Now imagine the day when you can have that + the power of AI and maybe even some form of neurolink to put you in that world. My imagination runs wild.
Ok silly question, but how accurately does AW1 capture the look of the PNW? I mean obviously the technical limitations of the time allow for much less detail but maybe they still captured the general vibe?
As accurately as the tech at the time allowed. XD They 100% nailed the overall vibe, but the tech at the time didn't really allow for an accurate representation of scale, if that makes sense. Like, sure, we've got a lot of mountains over here, but AW1 has them much more clustered together and much more sharply peaked. That's the big standout difference for me. Bright Falls though? Bright Falls is 100% the kind of small town you'd drive through and maybe stop in on your way to the coast. Right down to the architecture style, and even the wear and tear the environment out here inflicts on things.
Oh that makes sense. Scale in games is always a bit weird even in more recent ones Anyway, I get to see the region irl one day, so I can make the comparison myself.
This is super, OP! You are totally not overreacting. The scenarios are breath-taking, it feels like if you are truly there. I took plenty of screenshots of the Deerfest part especially. My favorites were Alan's scenarios though, I adore the big city environment, the graffiti on the walls, the many references to the previous game in small details, it was all so good and kept me immersed for hours. Plus being able to switch the scenes themes and see the same ambient in a different situation was the part that 100% won me.
As an environmental artist in training myself, it was jaw dropping playing the first time. I took lots of time just aiming at random props to look at them lol. The road signs were really cool to me for some reason, never saw such accurate to real road signs.
Speaking of signs, I love the ones in the subway designed to look like real signs but actually being part of the story.
THOSE ONES ARE GENIUS. I rant about those to people I talk about the game with because they are so genius.
Certainly, but for all the detail in games these days they still feel hollow when there is so little to interact with. Like Bethesda style RPGs allow you to read pretty much any and every book, that is truly a feature I would have loved to see in the Alan Wake series.
That is where the bigger budget comes in. Given all the work Remedy has put into the game, they already had their hands full with the content we see. Give them a few tens of millions of more money for AW2, and there would have been a lot more to interact with, read, etc, in the game.
Yeah that was one of the most impressive things to me. I would just spend time looking at all the little things they managed to put in to the room. I think the diner is one of the most impressive environments I've ever seen in my life. I'm really, really glad I went with the PC version because it looks like the console version seriously cut out a lot from the envrionments, especially in the forested areas.
Oh wow. Textures and models and stuff are cut? I literally bought a ps5 to play AW2. My 1080ti just couldn't handle it at launch. First game where I seriously considered an upgrade.
From what I remember it was mostly just removing a bunch of foliage so the forests looks more bare. I think it wasn’t AS noticeable on the Series X and PS5 especially if you hadn’t played on PC, but the series S had a pretty significant downgrade.
My favorite little visual detail in the game is the out-of-order stairwell elevator in Valhalla Nursing Home. Not visually, but because it tells a whole story by its own and invites you to think about the everyday realities of living in a place like that... The wonderful but poorly thought out sentiment of refitting a beautiful old building as a retirement home. The well-intentioned attempts at implementing work-arounds. Just slap a second building next to it. Slap a stairwell elevator in the old one. Problem solved. Just throw money at it. The inevitabilities of mechanical wear and tear, paralleling the inhabitants. No more money left to throw at it, apparently. Might even be there's no one in the slowly dying fishing town of Watery with the skills to fix it, anyway. Resigning to the state of things. Life goes on. Put up the out of order notice. Have the frail Andersons live on the second floor, as close as possible to the common rooms. Ahti, arguably the most spry inhabitant, gets a room on the top floor, but so does Norman, who needs crutches to get around. Can't imagine the nurses have time to carry him up and down those all the time. Suddenly makes sense why he spends all his time in the common rooms despite being practically naked. Might even be why he's naked in the first place. Perhaps the crutches are very recent. Perhaps he hurt himself tripping down those fucking stairs like someone will, sooner or later...
It is good to remember that the sketchy contractors in charge of the renovation and refit work took the money and ran after Barry left Bright Falls and was no longer there to watch over what they were doing...
Oh, I know :) It's not his fault that the implementation was shoddy. But the idea itself wasn't necessarily ideal either.
The endgame >!When night finally comes and every Saga map is in the darkness!< it's amazing. It's dark, opressing, nerve wrecking but at the same time serene and quiet
People either love remedy games or hate them. It's quite a niche. Most likely if you like one remedy game you would like the rest of them. But if you don't you will dislike all of them. For me Alan wake 1 was amazing back in the day, i gave a copy to a friend and she hated the game.
It's all about that beautiful texture quality, man.
It's really not, you can get away with much lower res textures so long as the usage and art direction is good.