Remedy The Lake House The DLC is not only a fantastic conclusion to Alan wakes up 2, but it also offers a nuanced critique of generative AI technologies and human creativity.

While, for me, the Nocturnal springs Downloadable content I missed the goal, The Lake House is a return to form. It’s by turns terrifying, funny, and challenging: the gameplay and environment design is a stellar blend of Alan Wake And Control.

In addition to sharp gameplay, I was surprised by the game’s thoughtful approach to generative AI.

In The Lake House you play as FBC agent Kiran Estevez (a supporting character from Alan wakes up 2) as she investigates an FBC research center at Cauldron Lake, a hotbed of “paranatural” activity in the Alan Wake games. Estevez quickly realizes that something is wrong at the establishment. She discovers a series of sinister experiments carried out by the establishment’s co-directors, Jules and Diana Marmont, who are unhappily married.

Jules attempts to channel otherworldly forces by torturing a painter with paranatural abilities into mass-producing paintings that predict the future. Diana’s goal is to mass-produce writings that perfectly mimic Alan Wake’s realistic style: whiteboards in her office show research into Alan’s writing, breaking down his handwritten pages into stylistic features (average length sentences, tone, themes, etc.).

In the previous Alan Wake games, Alan’s writing has the ability to change reality. Alan’s unique creative abilities are hijacked by the Dark Presence, an evil force that resides deep within Cauldron Lake. In The Lake House Diane seeks to replicate Alan’s creative power.

There is a strange resonance between Diana’s process and the way generative AI systems are built and executed. Diana is obsessed with finding more “authentic” pages of Alan’s writing, which she will use to create a model of Alan’s style. As with generative AI, the “model” must be powered by real data, produced by real artists. In Diana’s lab, an army of creepy typewriters stands ready to churn out Alan-style writing on demand.

The game’s memos speculate that this “fake” art fails because it is devoid of human emotion. Creating fake pages and paintings involves crowding out the artistic output of exploited employees and test subjects. It’s a horrible process.

It’s tempting to read The Lake HouseRemedy’s commentary is a straightforward celebration of human creativity (and a critique of automated creation), but Remedy’s view of art has always been more complicated. While the game presents automated artistic production in a negative light, true human creativity also has an ugly side.

Alan’s writings are an effective channel for paranatural forces, but these forces are evil. Throughout Remedy’s connected universe, Alan’s writings are causing destruction. Art is powerful, but it is also dangerous.

This nuanced approach to stories and art is one of the reasons I love Remedy’s games. Reading and writing can be painful. When we feel with and for the characters, it can hurt.

Stories can also inflict real harm on individuals and communities. In her TED conference“The Danger of a Single Story,” novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes how, as a child in Nigeria, she read mainly British and American children’s books. Reading these stories, she became “convinced that the books. . . I had to talk about things that I couldn’t personally relate to. Despite persistent claims that stories make us better people, stories can perpetuate misinformation and stereotypes. Stories can create worlds we don’t want to live in.

The Lake Housejust like Remedy’s other games, is a celebration of human creative power. Remedy’s games remind us that texts can move and persuade us: stories, like those of Alan Wake, have the capacity to create and destroy worlds. The Lake House brings this focus on storytelling into the present moment, raising questions about if the same can be said of automated artistic expression. In the connected Remedy universe, the answer is no.