Alan Wake 2 wins Critics' Choice Award at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023

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The titular author has earned the write to celebrate

Alan Wake 2 winning at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023
(Image credit: Remedy Entertainment)

Alan Wake 2 has won the Critics' Choice Award at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 powered by Intel. 

As voted on by a group of journalists from GamesRadar+, PC Gamer, Future Game Show, EDGE Magazine, Retro Gamer, and PLAY magazine – alongside Future's trusted network of freelance writers – Remedy Entertainment's long-awaited sequel has risen to the top in a year absolutely brimming with top-tier candidates.

Speaking in our Alan Wake 2 review, GamesRadar+'s UK Managing Editor Josh West described the survival horror game as "a strange, imaginative, and truly ambitious sequel that never fails to upend your expectations," ultimately concluding that, "you won't find anything else quite like Alan Wake 2 this generation." The game received the coveted five-star review score from us too.

That's clearly a sentiment shared by the Critics' Choice Award judging panel, in the face of what is surely one of the most ambitious games of the year. 

Launched on October 27, 2023 across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S, Alan Wake 2 is a direct follow-up to its 2010 predecessor, but whereas the first game was an action-adventure game with horror trappings, this sequel leans fully into the survival horror space. 

Alan Wake 2 likewise includes two central protagonists for the first time – the eponymous writer Alan Wake still trapped in the Dark Place, and an FBI agent named Saga Anderson who's been sent to investigate mysterious murders in Bright Falls that just might be connected to Wake's unexplained disappearance.   

Discover the best games of 2023 at the best prices by checking out the Golden Joystick Awards Steam sale page

Joe Donnelly
Joe Donnelly
Contributor

Joe Donnelly is a sports editor from Glasgow and former features editor at GamesRadar+. A mental health advocate, Joe has written about video games and mental health for The Guardian, New Statesman, VICE, PC Gamer and many more, and believes the interactive nature of video games makes them uniquely placed to educate and inform. His book Checkpoint considers the complex intersections of video games and mental health, and was shortlisted for Scotland's National Book of the Year for non-fiction in 2021. As familiar with the streets of Los Santos as he is the west of Scotland, Joe can often be found living his best and worst lives in GTA Online and its PC role-playing scene.