Alan Wake (2010)

Alan Wake is an action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game was released in May 2010 for the Xbox 360, with a Windows version following in February 2012 and a remastered version releasing for Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in October 2021, as well as a Nintendo Switch version in October 2022. The story follows bestselling thriller novelist Alan Wake as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance during a vacation in the small fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington, all while experiencing events from the plot in his latest novel, which he cannot remember writing, coming to life.
In its pacing and structure, Alan Wake is similar to a thriller television series, with episodes that contain plot twists and cliffhangers. The game itself consists of six episodes, and the storyline is continued by two special episodes, The Signal and The Writer, that were made available as downloadable content (DLC) within the same year of the game's release. Additionally, a six-episode live-action web series called Bright Falls acts as a prequel to the game, and a number of related books also expand upon the Alan Wake story. A sequel, Alan Wake II, was announced for release in 2023.
Chiefly written by Sam Lake, Alan Wake took over five years to create. The game was originally developed as an open-world survival game as an anti-thesis to Remedy's prior linear Max Payne games, but struggled over three years in merging the gameplay with the action-thriller story they wanted to tell. After an intense two-month period, the team reworked the game to be a more traditional linear game broken into an episodic approach but which better supported the planned narrative structure and capable of reusing much of the open world assets already built.
The game received positive reviews from critics, has garnered a cult following, and is often praised for its visuals, sound, narrative, pacing and atmosphere. Alan Wake was awarded the first spot in Time magazine's list of the top 10 video games of 2010. Alan Wake's American Nightmare, a stand-alone spin-off, was released in February 2012 on the Xbox Live Arcade service.
One cancelled sequel became the foundation and inspiration of Remedy's next title, Quantum Break. Later, Remedy released Control in 2019, which takes place in a shared universe with Alan Wake. A proper sequel, Alan Wake II, was announced at The Game Awards 2021 in December 2021 and is planned for release in 2023.
== Gameplay ==
Alan Wake is described by Remedy as "the mind of a psychological thriller" and "the body of a cinematic action game" put together. In interviews, the game's creators hold that the game does not belong squarely in the survival horror video-game genre. The game is primarily set in the fictional idyllic small town of Bright Falls, Washington. The main gameplay happens in various areas of Bright Falls—such as the forest, a national park, or a farm—during the night time; these are punctuated by calmer, non-combative sequences set during the day.
The player controls the eponymous protagonist Alan Wake, a well-known novelist who is going through writer's block. In the game, a "darkness" is taking over humans, animals, and objects. These enemies, dubbed the "Taken", are murderous shadows that attack Wake, wielding weapons of their own, ranging from mallets and knives to shovels and chainsaws. They vary by speed, size and the amount of damage they can take, and some can teleport between short distances. Besides the Taken, the player must combat flocks of possessed ravens and animated objects. When enemies are close, Alan can perform a slow-motion cinematic dodge maneuver.
The Taken are protected by a shield of darkness, initially rendering them impervious to attack; they can only be injured with a firearm after exposure to light, which burns the darkness away. This puts significant emphasis on flashlights in conjunction with conventional weapons, such as a revolver or shotgun. Flashlight beams act as a reticle. The handheld lights Wake can carry can be boosted, which destroys the darkness faster, but also reduces the light's battery level. Besides the conventional shooter gameplay need for reloading ammunition, the player must also insert fresh batteries into the flashlight when they run out, or wait for it to recharge slowly. The strength of the darkness protecting an enemy can vary among the Taken. The amount of darkness "shield" remaining on an enemy is represented by a corona of light that appears when aiming at an enemy. Instead of traditional health bars, this shield is represented by a circle that decreases in diameter as it weakens. A stronger darkness may recharge after exposure to light over time. When a Taken is finally destroyed, it disappears.
The player is often encouraged to take advantage of environmental light sources and placing, and to use other light-based weapons and accessories, such as flare guns, hand-held flares and flashbangs. Wake can use searchlights to take out massive waves of Taken. Streetlights and other light stands can provide a safe haven, which the Taken cannot enter, and will regenerate the character's health faster. Otherwise, health regenerates slowly with time, when not taking any damage. In certain sections of the game, it is possible to use a car to traverse between locations in Bright Falls. When in a car, the player can run down Taken on the road, or boost the vehicle's headlights to destroy them.
A major element of gameplay is the optional discovery and collection of manuscript pages from Alan Wake's latest novel, Departure. Although Wake does not remember writing this book, its storyline seems to be coming to life around him. These readable manuscript pages are scattered around the game world, out of chronological order; they often describe scenes that have yet to occur and act as warning and instructions for proceeding through upcoming challenges. Other optional collectibles include coffee thermos flasks scattered around the game world (100 in all), as well as discovering television sets which show different episodes of the fictional Night Springs series, radios airing talk and music from Bright Falls' local radio station, and textual signs around the town. The radio shows and signs provide a deeper understanding of the town's history and culture. The game's downloadable content episodes introduce other collectibles such as alarm clocks.
== Plot ==
Alan Wake (voiced by Matthew Porretta) is a bestselling crime fiction author suffering from a two-year stretch of writer's block. He and his wife Alice travel to the small mountain town of Bright Falls, Washington for a short vacation at the advice of their friend and agent Barry Wheeler. Before arriving, Alan has a nightmare about shadowy figures who try to kill him, when an ethereal figure in a diving suit intervenes in the dream and teaches him how to utilise light to fend off the shadows.
Upon arrival in Bright Falls, Alan goes to a diner to retrieve the keys to their cabin from Carl Stucky, the landlord, but instead encounters a mysterious old woman, who tells him that Stucky had fallen ill and she was entrusted to give Alan the keys. The woman directs the couple to a cabin on an island in the middle of Cauldron Lake, a volcanic crater lake, where Alan experiences a vision of the old woman. As they unpack, Alice reveals that the real purpose of their trip is to help break his writer's block by arranging for him to see a famous Bright Falls psychologist named Dr. Emil Hartman. Alan is infuriated and storms out, only to rush back when he hears Alice crying for help. He returns just as Alice is dragged into the lake's waters by a mysterious force. Alan dives in after her, blacking out as he submerges.
After yet another hallucination of the old woman, Alan regains consciousness, apparently having driven his car off the road with no memory of how he got there. He attempts to reach a nearby gas station but progress is hampered by murderous, shadowy figures resembling those in his dream. While fighting the shadows with light, Alan repeatedly encounters an ethereal figure in a diving suit similar to the one from his dream, who leaves behind pages of a manuscript entitled Departure. Ostensibly written by Alan, he has no memory of writing. He soon discovers that the events of the manuscript are coming true and that the shadowy figures, named "Taken," are townsfolk possessed by a dark force. After killing a possessed Carl Stucky and reaching the gas station, Alan tries to alert Sheriff Sarah Breaker of his wife's disappearance but Sheriff Breaker states that there has been no island or cabin in Cauldron Lake for decades after it sank in a volcanic eruption. Breaker believes Alan is mentally unwell and takes him to the police station. Meanwhile, Barry arrives in Bright Falls in search of Alan.
At the police station, Alan lies to hide the hallucinations he's been experiencing. He receives a call from a man purporting to be Alice's kidnapper, demanding the pages of Departure in exchange for her. Emil Hartman appears at the station to invite Alan to stay at his psychiatric hospital, Cauldron Lake Lodge—Alan punches Hartman as a response. Alan meets the kidnapper at a nearby national park, who demands pages of Departure as ransom. The two fight before the kidnapper runs off into the night.
Alan and Barry attempt to retrieve more pages and attract the attention of FBI agent Robert Nightingale. Alan leaves Barry behind and flees Nightingale, who chases him through the forest unsuccessfully. He meets the kidnapper again to deliver the pages. As he arrives at the location he witnesses the kidnapper being tortured by the mysterious old woman, confessing that he never actually had Alice. Alan and the kidnapper are then attacked by a dark tornado that hurls Alan into Cauldron Lake.
He awakens in the lodge overlooking Cauldron Lake under the care of Hartman who claims Alan is experiencing a psychotic break, triggered by Alice drowning. He claims the supernatural phenomena Alan has been experiencing were all fabrications of his imagination. Alan attempts to escape the lodge as the shadowy force starts to attack it, learning in the process that the fake kidnapper was employed by Hartman to lure Alan to him. Hartman tries to stop Alan from escaping, and gives the impression that he is aware of the supernatural events surrounding the lake. Barry helps Alan escape the lodge before the shadow subsumes it and all those inside.
Alan and Barry gradually begin to learn the truth about Cauldron Lake from other townsfolk. An entity known as the Dark Presence is trapped within the lake, attempting to escape by using the lake's power to turn fiction into reality. It had previously tried this with a poet named Thomas Zane— the figure in the diving suit — by taking the form of his spouse who drowned in the lake, Barbara Jagger; the old woman who Alan has encountered. Zane was able to resist its will and used his writings to cause the volcanic eruption that sank the island, stranding himself within the lake. The Dark Presence has grown strong enough to start to influence the townspeople and create the forces that have pursued Alan. That night as Alan and Barry take shelter, they get drunk on moonshine and Alan recall memories of being forced to write Departure during the prior week. He realised that the Dark Presence is trying to use his writings to escape, holding Alice in the lake so to coerce him.
Alan and Barry are arrested by Robert Nightingale but the Taken assault the police station and drag Nightingale away. Sheriff Breaker, now convinced of the Dark Presence's existence, helps Alan and Barry to reach Cynthia Weaver, a hermit who knew Thomas Zane and prepared countermeasures for the Dark Presence's return. Weaver leads them to the "Well-Lit Room" containing a light switch known as the Clicker, which, through the power of Alan's writings, possesses the narrative ability to destroy the Dark Presence. Alan returns to Cauldron Lake alone and dives in, finding himself in a surreal alternate dimension known as the Dark Place, where thoughts and ideas become reality. Alan encounters Jagger and destroys her with the Clicker; realising he must maintain balance in the story, Alan completes Departure by freeing Alice, but strands himself in the Dark Place in the process. Finishing Departure, Alan writes the final line, "It's not a lake, it's an ocean."
=== Special One: The Signal ===
Continuing from the end of the main game, Alan finds himself in a surreal version of Bright Falls and realises he is still trapped in the Dark Place. Zane directs Alan to follow a signal through a cell phone in order to "focus" and guide himself through the Dark Place. While navigating the realm's shifting, dreamlike topography, Alan encounters television screens depicting a more maniacal version of himself, who uses the power of the Dark Place to narrate circumstances that plunge Alan into danger, sending hordes of Taken after him. Alan also encounters an ethereal version of Barry, a figment of his subconsciousness, who helps guide Alan safely across the abstract landscape.
Zane eventually reveals that Alan himself is the cause of his current circumstance; the maniacal version of Alan on the television screens is an irrational aspect of Alan consumed by fear, his frenzied thoughts affecting the subjective world of the Dark Place. Alan encounters a monstrous conglomeration of televisions, through which the irrational Alan tries to kill him. Alan defeats the televisions, but wakes up back in the cabin again, and realises he is still trapped.
=== Special Two: The Writer ===
Still trapped in the Dark Place, Alan regains consciousness and accepts that he is the cause of the insanity he is experiencing, regaining his memories in the process. Zane tells him that the "irrational Alan" is still inside the cabin, controlling the Dark Place; the "rational Alan" must regain control in order to have any chance of escaping the Dark Place. Zane directs Alan to a lighthouse across the increasingly surreal landscape of the Dark Place, while the irrational Alan attempts to stop him by creating delusions of Alice, manipulating the landscape, and sending armies of Taken after him. Alan eventually outwits his other self and reaches the lighthouse, passing through it to reach the cabin.
As Alan nears the cabin, the imaginary Barry reappears and tells Alan that he will have to reject all the illusions before he can face off against the insane version of Alan, including the apparition of Barry. Alan is forced to confront Taken versions of Barry and the other townsfolk, defeating them all and reentering the cabin. The irrational Alan is in a paranoid state on the cabin floor; when Alan touches him, the two are made whole again. Alan realises that he cannot let himself fall into a delusional state again for fear of never being able to escape, and returns to the typewriter to start a new story—"Return".
== Development ==
By 2003, the Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment had created the critically acclaimed Max Payne (2001), and its sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003). After shipping Max Payne 2, Remedy Entertainment spent some time "recovering from the crunch," and started coming up with different concepts for a new project. Among these was the concept for Alan Wake. Early on, this was based on trying to tell a deeper narrative story than what Max Payne had been, influenced by works of Stephen King and David Lynch, in particular Twin Peaks, and approached as a television episodic format to tell the story of the action-thriller. The basic elements of the narrative were set early on: Alan Wake as a successful writer finds himself in the small town of Bright Falls where due to supernatural events his writings have come to life to attack him.
To further distance this next game from the linear style of Max Payne, Remedy planned Bright Falls as a free-roaming, sandbox-style open world city, similar to those seen in the Grand Theft Auto series. They developed a semi-automatic system to help generate this open world using biomes and other features based on their research on the Pacific Northwest where Bright Falls was set. For example, this tool allowed them to path a road across the game world, upon which the tool would make sure no vegetation would appear near the road though added sprout of grass near its edges, and would add approach ditches and other features along the sides of the roads to simplify the world creation. Remedy also wanted cinematic action, so light and darkness was to play a significant factor in the game, which was first built into a dynamic day-and-night cycle. The game would have been more like a survival game; during daylight hours the player would collect resources, such as gasoline to run portable generators to run lights, as to protect and defend the player-character at night. According to Remedy's creative director Sam Lake, this approach created numerous difficulties in establishing a story and narrative for the thriller to explain how the gameplay elements tied together with the supernatural events. For example, Lake said one idea was based on the supernatural events tied to the no-longer-dormant volcano under Cauldron Lake, which would have led to the evacuation of Bright Falls and left Alan dealing only with the supernatural forces.
The game, still designed around this open-world approach, was announced at E3 2005 in June for "the next generation of consoles and PCs", and was shown to the press behind closed doors in the form of a tech demo. Remedy also used this demo to gain publisher interest. By 2006, Remedy announced they had partnered with Microsoft Game Studios to publish the game exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console and then-current Windows Vista PC operating system.
Remedy still continued to struggle with merging the open-world survival gameplay and story, now further complicated with Microsoft's involvement and suggestions for improvement, which Lake compared to a "too many cooks" situation. They were now missing various publisher milestones as they tried various changes to the open-world format with no clear resolution. Roughly three years into development, the team recognised they needed to stop and refocus on what the core elements of the gameplay was to be. According to Lake, Remedy took the leads from each department to form a "sauna" group, making them work in a room together to lock down the gameplay that Alan Wake should have without losing much of work they had already done, "with all the heat and pressure on us". This took about two months but from it came the revised gameplay loop, which they were able to reapply to the existing open-world setting they had, breaking it apart into linear chapter-sized levels for the final game and adding some additional assets as needed. This allowed some levels to be used for daytime that would be used to advance the story, letting the player talk to NPCs and explore the area, and others for the night levels that were predominately action-based, and even with some levels having both daytime and nighttime versions. This change better supported the thriller narrative as well. Other key gameplay ideas that came out from this period were the ideas for the Taken and how the player would fight them, how these enemies would appear and the in-game signals the player would see and hear to prepare, and the use of lit safe havens between combat. Lake stated that because they kept as much of the previous open-world elements they already built in this rework, this helped to give "a sense of realness" to the game world. Oskari Häkkinen, the head of franchise development at Remedy during Alan Wake's development, said that retaining the open world map, with features planned and rendered in the distance, gave them a means to provide landmarks to give a sense of direction to the player, gave the ability to create foreshadowing in the narrative, and generally helped with overall cohesion of the game world.
The first screenshots depicted the character of Alan Wake in much different attire, as well as a different layout for the town of Bright Falls, compared to the released game.
According to Lake, the character of Alan Wake was also intended to be the opposite of Max Payne. While Max was a cop and thus suited to an action game, Remedy wanted Alan to be atypical of an action hero, making him a writer, partially influenced by King, that became involved in the events and forced into action. Near the end of the game's development, Alan's story started to become a metaphor for Remedy's work on the game itself, according to Lake: Alan's past work as a novelist was based on a fictional police detective (mirroring Remedy's Max Payne), but now struggled with writing something different (representing their troubles in finding the vision for Alan Wake).
The game's enemies were designed by drawing concept art and then pouring water over them to make them feel "Just a bit off". For the character of Alan Wake himself, Remedy used "concept photos" as opposed to more traditional concept artwork. All the characters featured in Alan Wake were based on real-life models. Ilkka Villi and Jonna Järvenpää, the models for Alan and Alice Wake, respectively, are the only Finnish models in the game; all other models were American. Voice-overs were provided by native actors from Japan and America for their respective regions.
After four years of having repeatedly demonstrated the Microsoft Windows version, in 2009, Remedy confirmed that at that point the game was being developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 and the decision to make a PC version was in Microsoft's hands. The game was announced as "done" and undergoing final polishing in August 2009. The game eventually went gold on 7 April 2010, and was released in May.
After the game's release in 2010, Remedy said that bringing the game to the PC was "not on the cards at the moment." However, nearly two years after its release, Remedy was able to secure the rights to publish a PC version.
=== Influences and allusions ===
Alan Wake was influenced by and often alludes to certain films, TV shows and books, as well as paying homage to a number of artists and works. Remedy has explained the shared themes and ideas between the game and other existing works of popular culture as "taking something familiar to people as an element, and building something of your own, and hopefully something [that is] unique in games, but still familiar from other forms of entertainment."
Bestselling author Stephen King was a major inspiration for Alan Wake. The main character as a writer whose work is coming true is a theme that has been explored by King in a number of his works. Wake's narration directly alludes to King on several occasions, including the game's opening line, in which he quotes a Stephen King essay. The game also pays homage to the film The Shining (based on King's novel of the same name) with a hedge maze area similar to the iconic maze in the film, among other references, as well as King's novel Christine, with one of the in-game cars resembling her. King himself was asked for permission to use his quote. He also received copies of the game as a "thank you", but was unable to try them out because he does not own an Xbox. In addition to King's work, Lake has cited the stories of Bret Easton Ellis and Neil Gaiman as influences, as well as Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.
In the game there are a number of television sets that can be found around the town in different places. They can be switched on and a short episode of the fictional series Night Springs will be played, which is influenced by the television series The Twilight Zone, created by Rod Serling in the late 1950s. Alfred Hitchcock is also cited as an inspiration, with the flocks of birds that often attack the protagonist being influenced by his classic horror film The Birds.
The game's setting, Bright Falls, draws much inspiration from the early 1990s TV show Twin Peaks, which was set in the titular town; both fictional small towns in the state of Washington. To research the Pacific Northwest setting for the game, a Remedy team travelled to the area and drove about 2,000 miles between Oregon; Washington; and British Columbia, Canada, over two weeks, bringing back over 6,000 photographs and videos of various natural settings and Americana of the small towns in the area. These included Astoria, Oregon and North Bend, Washington, the latter where Twin Peaks was filmed, as well as locations used around Seattle for the film The Ring. Even after returning to Finland, the Remedy team contacted Microsoft, based in Washington, for help with additional photographs.