Many players will be wondering if they need to play the original Alan Wake before tackling Alan Wake 2. Some games do an excellent job of recapping previous titles in the series, but with how meta AW2 is, it’s intimidating to go into this one blind. This is especially true since the story got a pseudo-prequel in the form of the AWE DLC for Control.
Can I play Alan Wake 2 without playing the first game and the Control DLC?
You can play Alan Wake 2 without completing the original game or the Control AWE DLC and still enjoy it. However, there are some references you won’t get if you do so. In particular, AW2 starts with us learning the fate of a major character from the first game. If you don’t know who they are, the moment doesn’t have nearly as much impact.
Without playing the Control AWE DLC, you won’t get all the references to the Federal Bureau of Control and the significance of their experiments in and around Bright Falls. The DLC serves as a sort of conclusion to the original game, an epilogue to Control, and a prequel to Alan Wake 2, as well as the foundation of the Remedy Entertainment Universe.
However, you can quickly pick up the basics of what’s happening in AW2 fairly easily. It helps that you start the game in the role of FBI agent Saga Anderson, who is an outsider unaware of the terrors of Cauldron Lake. As she learns more about the area’s mysteries, the player gets filled in on what they missed if they haven’t played the original game. Be warned, though, it’s not presented in a lovely, concise manner. The information Saga gets is fairly opaque and incomplete, so things will be confusing while you slowly piece together the full picture.
