If you've been playing Alan Wake 2 you may have noticed just how pretty that game is. I'd go as far to say it's the best looking videogame of 2023. Developer Remedy has done incredibly well to make what could've been a very dull and dark world look vibrant and detailed, and has since divulged what's actually going on behind the scenes in the Northlight engine to achieve it. And boy, it's a lot.
The studio outlines heaps of features it's rolled out with the Northlight engine powering Alan Wake 2 in a blog post. It's an interesting read, not only for the technical information on the studio's proprietary engine, but because it helps explain why mesh shaders are such a big deal in Alan Wake 2—when you're staring down the barrel of heaps of geometry you start to understand why the game chugs without them.
