Alan Wake 2 is getting a New Game Plus mode called The Final Draft on December 11, 2023, developer Remedy Entertainment has announced.
Revealed in a blog post, Remedy made clear The Final Draft isn’t just an opportunity to play through Alan Wake 2 again, but actually includes a whole new ending to the game.
“The Final Draft unveils a new ending to the layered story of Alan Wake, sure to spark speculation and theories among our dedicated fans,” the post read. “Additionally, there is new lore to be found in the form of a few new videos and manuscript pages that have been added to New Game Plus experience, along with other subtle additions.
Players will keep all weapons, Charms, and character upgrades from their first playthrough, and will likely need all that and more if they’re to take on the new Nightmare difficulty level. “Brace yourselves for intensified enemies, strategic gameplay, and an adrenaline-pumping experience that will push your skills to the limit,” Remedy said.
The update will also bring “numerous bug fixes” and “slight performance optimisations”, with full patch notes arriving on launch day. Remedy teased the New Game Plus mode earlier this month but didn’t reveal it would be so extensive.
The base game launched October 27 as a sequel to the original Alan Wake more than a decade in the making. Time didn’t wear down its quality though, as IGN awarded the sequel a 9/10 in our review.
“Alan Wake 2 is a superb survival horror sequel that makes the cult-classic original seem like little more than a rough first draft by comparison,” we said.
It also earned plenty of awards at The Game Awards, which took place December 7, winning Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction. You can check out the full list of winners here.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
During Gamescom 2018 in Cologne, Germany, NVIDIA announced that ray tracing–a graphics technique capable of rendering special effects on par with motion pictures–was finally coming to video games. The event also marked the introduction of the concept of AI for gaming with the introduction of Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).
And right now, there are over 500 games and applications that take advantage of any combination of these features! NVIDIA is kicking off an RTX 500 celebration for reaching this milestone. Celebrate this benchmark with NVIDIA by following the GeForce social channels on X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube TikTok, or Reddit, Discord and other social media platforms.
We have our own list of games that make excellent use of RTX technologies. From the top:
5. Minecraft with RTX
Unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your fingers stuck in your ears since 2011, you know all about Mojang’s enormously popular sandbox-style game. But Minecraft isn’t just popular for its endless creative potential, but also for the big, chunky blocks that give the game a distinct visual style.
You wouldn’t think Minecraft’s simple blocks wouldn’t benefit from ray tracing, but NVIDIA proves everyone wrong. Minecraft feels like the progenitor to the RTX-OFF and RTX-ON graphical fidelity comparison, and for good reason. You can see there’s a clear upgrade.
Minecraft with RTX debuted in 2020 with full ray tracing (also known as path tracing), meaning all the lights in the game benefit from ray tracing. A lot of people were surprised at how much the implementation of full ray tracing transformed the game. Ray tracing lets you witness beautiful effects like rays of light bursting through cloud cover, but the upgrade to Minecraft.
RTX isn’t just visual. Diving into Minecraft RTX’s caves and mines means navigating through an unsettlingly realistic darkness. This makes Minecraft a much more intense game, and it’s a good example of a mainstream audience getting to see how ray tracing can enhance games.
4. Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus is another example of a marquee AAA game that was transformed by ray tracing integration. Metro Exodus originally launched with ray traced global illumination in 2019, making it one of the first games to use ray tracing effects. This visual beast of a game underwent a complete overhaul with the re-release of the game in 2020. Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition features a reworked method of global illumination that also adds new RT effects.
Metro Exodus is already a creepy game in its vanilla state, but the Enhanced Edition’s use of RTX tech ramps up the fear factor with creepy shadows that seem to dance around you when you spark any kind of light. It makes the haunted tundra that much more chilling, and it’s just one example of how ray traced lighting can add so much to a video game.
3. Control
Our third example of games that make especially good use of RTX technology is Control by Remedy Entertainment. In August 2019, Control became the first game to combine multiple RTX lighting effects such as reflections, shadows, and indirect diffuse lighting. It’s no wonder people still regard this supernatural, avant-garde shooter as one of the best-looking games of all time.
Control became the first game to combine multiple RTX lighting effects such as, ray-traced indirect diffuse lighting, shadows, and reflective surfaces.That’s why the Oldest House will always feel creepy enough to sweep you away from reality.
2. Alan Wake 2
Speaking of Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake 2 continues the studio’s relationship with NVIDIA’s RTX implementation through use of ray traced EVERYTHING along with serving as a launch vehicle for DLSS 3.5 – the latest iteration of DLSS that uses a technique known as ray reconstruction, a new AI model that creates higher quality ray-traced images for intensive ray-traced games and apps.
Alan Wake 2 is a dark game, both narratively and mechanically. Remedy makes expert use of RTX technology to carpet Alan Wake’s misadventure with thick darkness that contrasts perfectly with whatever small bits of light Alan Wake can manage to hold onto.
1. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
When Cyberpunk 2077 was first released in 2020, it was a visual feast that pushed computers to their limits with its cutting-edge implementation of ray traced lighting and DLSS 2. Then in January 2023, developer CD Projekt Red updated Cyberpunk 2077 to feature DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, further using AI to accelerate and stabilize framerates. And thanks to the continued efforts of developer CDPR, Cyberpunk’s new expansion, Phantom Liberty, levels up the game’s graphical fidelity further with Full RT and DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction which further improved RT quality on all RTX GPUs.
Like all the entries in this list, Phantom Liberty makes full use of its overhauled ray traced lighting by way of its secret agent storyline that sees the main character V get recruited by the New United States of America to uncover a plot that could change the course of history forever. Phantom Liberty revolves around stealth, so stick to the shadows and light up the dark mysteries that envelope characters with backstories filled to the brim with various shades of gray.
And that’s just five out of over 500 titles that make great use of RTX features. What are your picks? How do you plan on celebrating RTX 500? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned to IGN.com for more on all things NVIDIA.
In a surprise shadow-game after tonight’s The Game Awards, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now available on Xbox Series X/S.
While Game of the Year winners Larian Studios didn’t announce the news on stage, they did share it on X/Twitter after the ceremony. It’s available on the Microsoft Store.
We’ve known the game was on track for a December release for a while now thanks to Xbox’s teasing, but this wasn’t always the case. Baldur’s Gate 3 was originally released just on PC and PS5, with Xbox versions getting delayed due to issues with the Xbox Series S specifically struggling to perform splitscreen co-op. In the past, Xbox has committed to parity between Xbox Series S and X for all games, but it ultimately made an exception for Baldur’s Gate 3 so the game could launch this year.
As a result, split-screen co-op won’t be available on Series S consoles, but will be for Series X. Online co-op, cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox, all patches, and all other updates and features will be available, though. Yes, that includes the recent epilogue update that includes 3,589 new lines of dialogue to let you say goodbye to all your beloved party members at the very end of the game.
It’s a good thing Xbox players are finally getting their hands on Baldur’s Gate 3, because it’s pretty great. In our review, we gave it a coveted 10/10, and wrote the following: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”
As Dusk Falls, the narrative-focused interactive drama by Interior Night, is finally making its way onto PlayStation consoles.
Announced at the 2023 Game Awards, As Dusk Falls arrives on PS4 and PS5 on March 7th, 2024. The PS5 version includes new exclusive features including haptic feedback and touchpad controls, with an audio description accessibility feature available on all versions.
“Since its launch on Xbox and Steam last year, we’ve been immensely proud of how our debut game has been received by players and critics alike. We are now especially excited to bring ‘As Dusk Falls’ to PlayStation and its fantastic community that deeply enjoys cinematic narrative experiences.” said Caroline Marchal, CEO and Creative Director of Interior Night.
“We are leveraging the distinctive capabilities of the PS5 with Haptic Feedback to increase the weight of every decision and touchpad controls to make the gameplay even more intuitive. We can’t wait to see how new players will shape their characters’ fates in the world of ‘As Dusk Falls’ in the coming year.”
As Dusk Falls was originally released in 2022 for PC and was a console exclusive on Xbox consoles. Similar to games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead or the Life is Strange series, As Dusk Falls allows players to choose their own adventure that can be played solo or in co-op with up to eight players at a time.
In our review of As Dusk Falls, which we awarded a 9 out of 10, we said: “As Dusk Falls’ interactive crime drama is a masterwork of branching storytelling where decisions matter and repeated playthroughs are rewarded with even more revelations.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Moon Studios, the developer behind Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, just unveiled its next project at The Game Awards. It’s called No Rest for the Wicked, and it represents the studio’s first foray into the Diablo genre of isometric ARPGs.
No Rest for the Wicked, based on what we’ve seen so far, is quite the far cry from the Ori games while still being recognizable as a Moon Studios game. It takes place in a gorgeous, painting-like world with significant verticality and scale, hidden treasures, monsters to fight, and plenty of quests. It also features intense action combat necessitating practice, skill, and timing – not button-mashing, per the press release.
The game takes place in the year 841 in the kingdom of Isola Sacra, just as the king passes away. The transition of power to his successor quickly becomes fraught and turns into conflict, while at the same time a plague hits the island nation manifesting in horrible disease-ridden beasts.
Players can fight through the monsters and enemy armies alone or alongside up to three other players in online co-op, including the ability to work together to overcome challenges or split up the group entirely to explore simultaneously, but alone.
No Rest for the Wicked is being published by Private Division, and is planned for an early access release on PC in Q1 of 2024, with full releases planned later on for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. More details are expected on march 1 in a digital showcase called “Wicked Inside” airing on YouTube and Twitch.
The Game Awards 2023 is underway right now, and we’re expecting a night full of video game recognition and, of course, reveals. Geoff Keighley’s annual December show has been home to some big game announcements, and we’re expecting no different tonight.
This year, we should get some news regarding Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox release date, an update on Metaphor: ReFantazio, and a potential “major announcement”from Xbox. And, there are sure to be plenty of surprises in store. So keep refreshing this page throughout the night to get updates on everything announced at The Game Awards 2023 as it happens live.
Josef Fares’ Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Is Getting a Remake
Josef Fares is the creative lead on co-op games like It Takes Two and A Way Out, and now his first big game is getting a remake. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on February 28, 2024. The original game is unique because you control two characters at the same time with each control stick, creating for a solo co-op experience.
Rise of the Golden Idol Revealed
We got a look at Rise of the Golden Idol, the followup to the indie hit The Case of the Golden Idol. It’s coming to Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch.
Daniel Mullins’ Next Game Is Pony Island 2: Panda Circus
We got our first look at Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, which showed off the creepy atmosphere featured in Daniel Mullins’ new upcoming game.
Good Burger and Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson just launched his movie production studio, Artists For Artists, and one of its first projects will be an animated series based on a PlayStation video game.
First details on the mystery adaptation come from an interview Forbes conducted with Thompson about the studio. Co-founded alongside John Ryan Jr., it’s a company that got its start with Good Burger 2 just last month and already has 50 other movies and TV shows in the works with giants like Netflix and Universal.
Sony is in the mix, too, with AFA looking to make a series based on one of its many gaming IPs. Sadly, Thomspon and Ryan aren’t ready to talk about which game viewers can expect to see come to life.
“We worked with Sony to get the rights to and we’re turning this game that’s done over $1 billion in sales into a cartoon,” Ryan added. “And they’ve been so giving with the freedom; we thought it was going to be a bigger lift than it was.”
The question is obvious; What game is AFA working on making a cartoon? Jak and Daxter or Ratchet & Clank come to mind as clear options, but PlayStation has access to dozens of franchises that could work as an animated series. LittleBigPlanet, Sly Cooper, or even Infamous have potential in the realm of animation, too, though it’s hard to make guesses with so little go off of.
Sony has been busy bringing its games to other entertainment mediums for the last few years. The Last of Us and Twisted Metal both recently received the television show treatment at HBO and Peacock, respectively. There’s also the Gran Turismo movie, which attempted to retell the real-life story of a gamer-turned-racer earlier this year.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
IGN’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage review returned an 8/10. We said its “return to the stealthy style that launched this series doesn’t do everything right, but everything it does feels like it was done with purpose.”
New Game Plus for Assassin’s Creed Mirage lets you dive back into Basim’s journey with your current progression and new rewards. Ubisoft has yet to detail the permadeath mode, but we do know it will be available across all difficulties.
In October, Ubisoft’s long-awaited Japanese Assassin’s Creed game, codenamed Assassin’s Creed Red, seemingly had its protagonist leaked by a developer. An image revealed what appeared to be a female assassin wielding a katana against a red background, which features the Japanese Assassin’s Creed logo and a pagoda.
Set in feudal Japan, Assassin’s Creed Red was revealed in September 2022 as Ubisoft’s “next premium flagship title and the future of our open-world RPG games”, suggesting it will be closer in style to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Odyssey than Mirage. A brief concept trailer showed an assassin jumping onto a roof during the sunset.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
We only have a few hours left until The Game Awards, and everyone seems pretty excited. Some games will get some awards, we’ll see some new trailers and announcements, great. Now, just for funsies, let’s check in and see how the Elden Ring community is doing-
…oh dear!
Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC totkgoty Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC Elden Ring DLC and Bloodborne on PC pic.twitter.com/ZezwfGGCsV
The Elden Ring community is, uh, real fired up right now! They seem to be trying to manifest an Elden Ring DLC trailer or release date, and the fervor for it is reaching one heck of a fever pitch. It’s like this on X/Twitter:
this is my final apology for the person i will become when the elden ring dlc is announced tomorrow pic.twitter.com/cP2Erm8Gyr
I am so confident that Elden Ring DLC will be shown tonight that if it’s not, I will marry your mon and become your new stepdad to properly teach you about disappointment.
So, will we see Elden Ring DLC tonight at The Game Awards? Who knows! We do know for a fact that DLC is being made, as FromSoftware announced the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC way back in February of this year. At the time, all we got by way of a teaser was a (frankly gorgeous) image of a dim, bleeding Erdtree in the distance, while a blonde figure (Miquella??? maybe???) astride Torrent looked on from the middle of a wheat field riddled with ghostly graves. We got a brief update on how things were going last month, when FromSoftware parent Kadokawa said the development was “proceeding smoothly” but did not offer further details. But there’s no release window yet, and we haven’t even seen a trailer to hint at what such a DLC might entail beyond, well the “shadow of the Erdtree.”
Personally, it seems to be like this expansion might still be a ways off. But Elden Ring has appeared at The Game Awards before, and we’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of the original game’s launch. So maybe all these Elden Ring fanatics are onto something.
Solidarity, Elden Ring fans. I’m forming my summoning circle right here along with you.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
