Alan Wake 2 New Game+ and DLC plans include what can only be a Control crossover

You haven't even downloaded Remedy's Alan Wake 2 yet, assuming you're planning to, which means it's already time to start thinking about what you'll do once you've finished it. Apologies, the news beat is a cruel mistress and the present is always past, but in my defence, jumping irresponsibly around the timeline does make sense for a supernatural horror game that follows two characters through different dimensions.

Remedy's plans for the game include a chunky New Game+ mode, aka "Final Draft", which will hopefully arrive in late November, and two DLC packs, Night Springs and The Lake House. The first concerns Alan Wake's fictional in-game TV show, a homage to the Twilight Zone, while the second involves "an independent government organization" that can surely only be the Federal Bureau of Control.

Alan Wake 2's Final Draft NG+ mode unlocks a Nightmare difficulty setting and lets you start over with all unlocked weapons, Charms and Words of Power upgrades. Intriguingly, it also introduces an alternative narrative encompassing six new Manuscript pages and video content on in-game TVs, which is certainly a bigger draw for me in terms of NG+ offerings than the customary "we replaced all the rats in the first dungeon with arch-demons". There are also "a few other surprises", dot dot dot, and Remedy are putting together a Photo Mode, though it sounds like this might arrive separately to the Final Draft stuff.

As regards the expansions, Night Springs is tentatively pencilled in for late spring 2024, and sees you playing through episodes of the titular TV show as "several familiar characters from the world of Alan Wake".

The Lake House has no release period as yet, and sees you exploring a weird secret research facility set up by the aforesaid government spooks. It consists of two separate adventures and by the sounds of things, will star the main game protagonists Saga Anderson and Mr Wake himself. The research facility is built on the shores of Cauldron Lake, which features alongside Wake in Control's AWE DLC. Yep, this sure sounds like a crossover. The question is, will it lay the foundations for Control 2, announced in November last year, which Remedy's Mikael Kasurinen described as "a leap into the unknown"?

Woof, I'm seriously getting ahead of myself. Let's wind back the clock to Alan Wake 2 at launch. Katharine is reviewing it and is pretty impressed so far, pre-plotted evidence-matching sequences aside.