PlayStation Plus just added one of the highest-rated horror games of the past few years to the service at the perfect time. With Halloween on the horizon, many PS5 owners tend to find themselves wanting to experience something spooky around this time to get into the holiday spirit. As luck would have it, one of the best horror titles that has arrived on PS5 in the console’s life cycle has now become available at no cost for those subbed to PS Plus.
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As of today, Alan Wake 2 has joined PlayStation Plus as its latest “free” game for the month of October 2025. The game, which launched back in 2023, comes from developer Remedy Entertainment and was lavished with praise upon its arrival. Currently, Alan Wake 2 boasts an incredibly high aggregate review score of 89/100 on Metacritic. It also won numerous Game of the Year accolades in 2023, further entrenching it as one of the best survival-horror games not only of this generation, but in history. It will be available to add to your library on PS Plus beginning today until November 4th.
What Makes Alan Wake 2 Special
So if you’ve never played or even heard of Alan Wake 2, you’re surely wondering what the hype is all about. Well, the short version is that this is just the best wholly original survival-horror game of arguably the past decade. It takes all of the gameplay stylings from old-school Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but modernizes them to great effect. Ammo, health, and other items are scarce, and you never know what enemies might be lurking around the next corner. It’s a game that constantly keeps you on edge, not only through this lack of resources, but also through the implementation of plenty of jump scares.
Remedy also puts a lot of its own unique flavor into the survival-horror formula, giving it a feel that isn’t reminiscent of anything else you’ve played. The integration of live-action cutscenes, in particular, is quite distinct, especially when these scenes are overlayed on gameplay. There are a ton of sequences in Alan Wake 2 that remain talked about a lot to this day and are worth experiencing for yourself.
Also, in typical Remedy fashion, the writing in Alan Wake 2 is top-notch. Between Alan’s own internal monologues and other exchanges with wacky side characters, Remedy is truly in its bag when it comes to the dialogue found in AW2. This is all paired with fantastic performances as well, which makes the game even more memorable.
Can You Play Alan Wake 2 Without Playing the First Game?
If you’re interested in giving Alan Wake 2 a shot but haven’t played the first game, you might be wondering how approachable it is. The short answer here is that you definitely don’t need to have played the original Alan Wake to appreciate Alan Wake 2. The sequel does a great job of getting you caught up with the events of the first entry so that you can hit the ground running with the story that it tells.
Of course, those who have played Alan Wake will definitely get more out of Alan Wake 2. There are a lot of callbacks to the first installment, whether it be to specific characters or certain events, that might go over your head if you never played Alan Wake. The first entry is still on PS5 and PS4 right now in the form of Alan Wake Remastered, and it isn’t very long, which means that you could snag it and play through it relatively quickly before checking out the sequel.
It’s also worth mentioning that Remedy’s other games, namely Control, also take place in the same universe as Alan Wake 2. As such, AW2 is just as much a sequel to Control in some respects as it is the game that it’s following in its own series. This doesn’t necessitate the need to play Control, either, but those who do will be more well-informed when it comes to some of the jargon that’s used frequently throughout Alan Wake 2.
Again, none of these other Remedy titles explicitly have to be played to enjoy Alan Wake 2. This all likely sounds a lot more confusing than it really is. Still, if you’re going to engage in this world, I can’t recommend enough that you see everything that there is to offer in the “Remedy Connected Universe”. This is a world that Remedy is still continuing to build out with Control 2 on the way in the future. For the moment, though, Alan Wake 2 represents the high point of what the studio has done so far.
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