Rhymes and limiting margins in Alan Wake II

Abstract

Game studies have investigated and analyzed ludonarrative structures in an attempt to give sense and meaning to these structures present in video game design. Those ludonarratives that compromise the legibility of the story and distort linearity are located on a crossroads where post-classical audiovisual discourses and video game design converge. Through a multidisciplinary methodology, the text traces the influences of different visual arts, especially cinema, on the structure of the game and how these intertextual relationships build allegiance and enhance playful experiences involving narrative, gameplay and visual aesthetics. This paper aims to analyze the intertextual loans and relationships present in Alan Wake II (Remedy, 2023) in its three layers, the ludic, the narrative and the audiovisual, paying attention to the incidence of narrative fragmentation and manipulation of the story and how these narrative distortions communicate with post-classical proposals rooted in the audiovisual ecosystem.