We've known about The Lake House expansion for almost a year now, but boy, is it great to finally see it in the flesh. The Lake House is the second expansion coming to Alan Wake 2, and while the first DLC, Night Springs, lets players dive into a fictional TV show, The Lake House will unravel the catastrophic event that took place within the Federal Bureau of Control's research station come this October.
"While I took a break in a cabin by a lake after Night Springs, Kyle Rowley, Clay Murphy, Juhani Jokinen, and Molly Maloney with the rest of the brilliant Alan Wake team kept on working on The Lake House," creative director of Remedy Entertainment Sam Lake says in a tweet. "It's shaping up to be something special. And by special, I mean terrifying."
"This expansion unfolds parallel to the main game, putting you in the shoes of FBC agent Kiran Estevez," the trailer's description reads. "Dive into a harrowing survival horror experience with the latest expansion for Alan Wake 2, set in an eerie new location on the shores of Cauldron Lake. Within the FBC's research station, the Lake House, a catastrophic event has occurred, where reckless experiments have caused reality to collide with the Dark Place."
Some fans think that the expansion will take place before Estevez meets Saga Anderson (one of Alan Wake 2's protagonists) and before the FBC snags Alan. There is some dialogue in the game that would support this: "It's a Bureau research facility at Cauldron Lake, set up to study the effects of this AWE," Estevez tells Anderson at the wrecked police station. "When I got into town, I went there for backup. The whole station is lost, taken by the Shadow. Lost a lot of agents, barely got out myself."
It's an excellent setting for an Alan Wake 2 and a story that, in hindsight, I'd love to know more about. In all honesty, going to check on the Lake House during my playthrough of Alan Wake 2 was the last thing on my mind. I don't think I was even listening to Estevez when she was telling me about it because I was so consumed with cracking the code to get the Sheriff's shotgun. Which I, in fact, did not get because I was too stupid to understand what the hint meant (it still haunts me).
But The Lake House may not just expand Alan Wake 2's story. The FBC is a core pillar in Control's story, so seeing we'll be spending more time with the Bureau, there's a good chance that we'll get some Control easter eggs. The game director of Alan Wake 2, Kyle Rowley, has also confirmed that Control will be important to some extent: "Dive into the world of Control through the lens of Alan Wake in this survival horror experience!"
