Best Action Games Like Alan Wake 2

The best action games like Alan Wake 2 are Control, Alan Wake Remastered and Silent Hill 2. Below are 6, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to action costs you.

Why Action Is a Good Answer for Alan Wake 2

Filtering to action means you want the fighting to carry the game rather than the story or the map. It is the right filter when what you actually miss is how something felt in your hands.

What you get: Combat you get better at. Action games put their design budget into the moment-to-moment, so the thing you are doing in minute two is the thing you are still doing in hour twenty, only better.

What made Alan Wake 2 worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the action part of that answer, and only the action part.

6 Action Games Like Alan Wake 2

  1. 1. Control

    Same studio, same universe, and the two connect directly.

  2. 2. Alan Wake Remastered

    The original, and the sequel assumes it.

  3. 3. Silent Hill 2

    The obvious ancestor — psychological horror where the town is the subject.

  4. 4. Resident Evil 2

    The survival horror half, done as well as it gets.

  5. 5. The Medium

    Dual-world horror with a similar structural gimmick.

  6. 6. SOMA

    Horror that unsettles by idea rather than by jump scare.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Pacing and world. Action games rarely have the quiet stretches or the writing that the adventure and RPG picks bring, and a few of them are shorter than they look.

Specifically, these are strong answers for Alan Wake 2 that are not action games, so they are not on this page:

  • Return of the Obra Dinn — For the deduction half, at its purest.
  • Pentiment — An investigation where your conclusions genuinely change what happens.
  • Twin Mirror — A mind-palace detective game in a small American town.

The full list is on games like Alan Wake 2 — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best action game like Alan Wake 2?

Control. Same studio, same universe, and the two connect directly.

Are all of these on the PlayStation 5?

No. Alan Wake 2 released on the PlayStation 5, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

What makes a good action game?

A small set of verbs and a game that keeps finding new questions to ask of them. The weak ones add buttons instead; the strong ones make you better at the ones you already have.

Are action games always hard?

No, and difficulty is a poor proxy for depth. Some of the hardest action games have very few decisions in them, and some of the deepest have a difficulty setting that lets you meet them halfway.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full Alan Wake 2 list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is action — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on Alan Wake 2

More Action Games Recommendations

Or read the action guide for where to start in the genre generally.