“When we originally came up with the concepts for [first expansion] Night Springs and The Lake House, we knew that they would be quite different tonally,” adds Game Director, Kyle Rowley. “Night Springs episodes were all about these kind of crazy ‘What If?’ scenarios where we could explore some rather unique ideas that were sometimes quite a dramatic tonal shift from the main experience in Alan Wake 2. With The Lake House, we wanted to again lean into the horror side of things.”

Our glimpses at the expansion today certainly make that clear. The course of Alan Wake 2’s main storyline allowed the team to shift gears throughout, drifting from surreal, comedic scenarios, to police procedurals, to full-on horror. The Lake House appears to be supercharging that last point – the lights are low, the enemies are elusive, and the scares are plentiful. The team likens it to the horror levels of the main game’s Valhalla Nursing Home sequence – and if you’ve played that, you’ll know what you’re in for.

The difference here is that The Lake House doesn’t just connect to Alan Wake 2, but a whole other Remedy game: Control. Kiran Estevez makes a small appearance in the main game, but here we’ll learn much more about her role as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Control – and the different kinds of horror that entails.

“Control explores horror themes as well of course,” explains Rowley, “but with Alan Wake 2 being a survival horror game we just felt that the world of Control provides some rather harrowing elements for us to lean into and scare players with.”

The connections to that previous game won’t just be skin-deep – besides working out what The Lake House means to this universe, a teaser at the end of the trailer seems to show Control’s quest goal/antagonist, Dylan Faden, implying there’s a much stronger link than we might have expected – although Remedy won’t be drawn on that right now.

As Communications Manager Miika Huttunen puts it: “It did look a lot like Dylan. It might be worth really exploring the nooks and crannies of the Lake House…”

Diving Into the Lake

Bringing this back to the expansion’s connection to Alan Wake 2, Estevez comes to The Lake House to speak to the FBC researchers inside about the Wake case, and the wider events of Cauldron Lake. But instead of finding answers, she gets more questions, as it becomes clear that the facility is going through a horrifying transformation of its own. The terrors of Alan Wake games always spawn from Overlaps – intersections of reality and art – and here an Overlap is bringing visual art to life. Most notably, that comes in the form of a new enemy type: The Painted.

“For The Lake House we wanted to introduce a new, different kind of enemy from those found in the main game,” says Rowley. “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.”

As a new playable character, Estevez doesn’t have the same abilities we’re used to from Saga and Alan – but she does come equipped with the expertise and equipment needed to deal with these fresh threats:

“As a character, she is very familiar with the paranatural forces at play around Cauldron Lake and has experienced many events similar to this in her career,” explains Murphy.

“Much like Saga, Estevez is a federal agent,” adds Rowley, “so she is quite capable with standard issue firearms. 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.”

Unlike the Night Springs expansion, this isn’t a series of standalone activities, either:

“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,” says Rowley. “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.”

Estevez herself will help enrich that story too: “We have tweaked the map so that you also get some nice little notes from Estevez where she uses her experience within the FBC to comment on what is happening in and around The Lake House, giving the player some nice additional context,” adds Rowley.

If you’ve already played Alan Wake 2, you’ll be able to jump directly into the Lake House content from the main menu, but it’s been designed to sit within the main game for any players coming to this for the first time:

“Like with the Night Springs expansion, The Lake House is incorporated into the main game flow, so players will come across these missions while playing through the main campaign in a seamless manner. We really believe adding both Night Springs and The Lake House into our core flow has improved the game’s pacing and makes for the ultimate Alan Wake 2 experience.”

It’s another masterstroke in how Remedy uses its expansions – not building on top of their games, but within them, making each one feel essential. But there’s an added point of interest here. In Control, the game’s second expansion, AWE, was used as a means of teasing the events of Alan Wake 2. With a Control sequel on the way, and plenty of connections already being made, is The Lake House performing a similar trick? Huttunen makes clear that that’s one question we won’t get an answer to until we play The Lake House:

“Let’s just say that we’re as excited as anyone in seeing how the story of the Faden siblings unfold in the future…”

Alan Wake 2: The Lake House arrives for Xbox Series X|S on October 22.