Detailed Analysis - Main Narrative

Written By Shaan Singh

Dual Narrative - The Horror Story Come True

In Alan Wake (2010), we joined the famous author as he went on a romantic getaway with his wife. Suffering from writer’s block after several years, he and his wife Alice made their way to the town of Bright Falls, WA for a romantic getaway. Sadly it’s not long after that Alan finds himself in a waking nightmare, with his wife missing and being pursued by a Darkness that seems to be infecting the town. Thrust into a fight for his life, Alan soon learns of a Dark Presence hidden beneath Cauldron Lake that used his writings to escape. To save his wife and the town, he trapped the Dark Presence back under Cauldron Lake but also himself in the process.

13 years later, Alan Wake 2 adopts a dual narrative approach following the original hero Alan and the new hero, FBI agent Saga Anderson. Since his imprisonment in 2010, Wake has been looking for ways to escape the prison, using his writings as a method of escape. Now his writings have reached the surface, far from the depths of Cauldron Lake and now it is time for a new hero to enter the fray. Following a string of killings dating back to 2010, Saga and her partner Alex Casey have been sent to Bright Falls to investigate the killings only to find themselves at the centre of a horror story. Quickly wasting little to no time in introducing Saga to the horrors that lie within Cauldron Lake.

Quickly acclimating to her situation, Saga and Alex waste no time in concluding that recent events are supernatural in nature, especially when the latest victim comes back to life, with his heart ripped out and goes on a killing spree in a sheriff's station morgue. Skipping through the denial of the supernatural quickly cuts through to the dramatic tension of hunting a monster. Too often, a main character will spend too much time denying the truth and often it only resolves after too many lives have been lost even when there is insurmountable evidence.

Keeping the tension and making sure the story moves forward is making Saga find Alan pretty early in the game's story, seemingly escaping from the Dark Place. Naturally, this task seems like it would be a significantly long one and would be placed at the centre of the story and in fairness it is. After some time exploring Saga's story, we go back to Alan's for a few chapters and it's here we get a sneak peek into his nightmarish journey in the Dark Place. While Saga's journey is far from easy, at least she has the comfort of knowing everything she is seeing is rooted in reality. In Alan's story in the Dark Place, he is stuck replaying the same loop over and over again in a dark mirror of New York City. The thing that makes Alan's journey different from Saga's is how it is utterly devoid of hope. As Alan traipses through the dark shadows of The Dark Place, he comes face to face with himself and the darkness that is harbouring in him.

After the first few chapters, we have the freedom to pursue Saga and Alan's story however we see fit. Granting us the ability to switch between the stories is sobering as instead of making the story all about the new character, we can choose to progress either character's story depending on who our preference is. If we want to follow our original hero, we can play as Alan in the Dark Place and if we want to continue our investigation in Bright Falls we can fill the shoes of our new hero, Saga.

The main issue with a dual narrative is that it's hard to balance out the story and pacing for both strands without one losing momentum. Something Alan Wake 2 does is maintain the tension and pacing throughout both stories, which makes switching between them an easy decision. While we do have the freedom to switch through at any time it does feel like the story was designed to be played in a certain order. Despite this, the story doesn't suffer from this as it adds even more to the mystery and the tension throughout both character's stories.

A good horror story needs a villain. In slasher films, there is Ghostface and Michael Myers and in supernatural-based horrors, you have Freddy Krueger. Each has its motives and in this game, our villain is very similar but also remarkably different to those typical movie villains. A dark reflection of Alan, brought to life by the power of The Dark Place known only as Scratch. The one responsible for the horrors that our heroes are braving seeks to escape from the Dark Place and consume the world. His presence is felt through every fibre of the story and we never forget what we're fighting against but also what we're fighting for. Thanks to Scratch, not only do our heroes have to brave the horrors that are trying to consume them, but the darkness of the town threatens to take everything they hold dear.

Saga, a loving wife and mother is fighting to protect what she has. As she endures the dangers in Bright Falls, she finds herself falling victim to the story as the power of The Dark Place is changing the reality around her. In a new reality, Saga lived in Bright Falls for a time and suffered a traumatic event, her daughter's drowning. Back in 2010, Alan trapped himself in the Dark Place to protect his wife but now years later, Alan has discovered that his wife isn't as safe as he thought she was, with Scratch reaching out from the Dark Place, tormenting her and trying to destroy her.

With our heroes fighting to protect what is theirs and save everyone else they can, Scratch begins to feel like a puppet master as everything the heroes face feels orchestrated to the last detail, as is the nature of a horror story. As Saga and Alan's stories come to a close, they are both pushed to their limits and don't come out of the horror story entirely unscathed. After everything they have had to do and been through, normal isn't something they can actually go back to, not entirely. While there are a few holes left in their story to fill, we know that their story is far from over with the promise of additional stories to be made in the future.

Narrative Tool - The Heroes' Sanctuary

Where do we feel most safe? Home, family, anything can make us feel safe, but for many people, the one place they can feel safe is in their heads. In our heads we feel safe, we keep our memories, our hopes and our dreams. In there, no one can harm us and this is why it makes for an impressive narrative tool. As Saga and Alan do their best to navigate the nightmare that is unfurling they can find solace in the place inside their head and even use it to their advantage against the Taken and the Horror story itself.

  • Mind Place - For Saga, the mind place is a technique adapted from the “Mind Palace Technique”. In the mind palace lays all the information our brains pick up and if used properly, we can recall that information incredibly quickly. A useful tool for Saga as she picks up clues surrounding the events in Bright Falls, she uses her Mind Place to solve clues and mysteries that help her to understand exactly what is happening. What makes the Mind Place feel pivotal is how Saga uses it. Not only does she use it to solve clues using evidence she has gathered but she has a supernatural ability to look into people's minds and discern their true nature and intentions. As Saga progresses through the story we come to learn that the Mind Place is not just a mental technique but an inherited gift from her mother's side. A gift that makes her perfectly equipped to fight the horror story. While others in the horror story are suffering from the reality-changing effects, Saga's mind place allows her to keep herself separated from the horror story and to see through the lies.

  • Writer’s Room - For Alan, his sanctuary isn't that but nonetheless it does help him significantly on his journey to escape from The Dark Place. Trapped in the Dark Place, his prison has manifested as a Writer's Room. In the room, Alan has attempted to write many stories in an effort to escape but 13 years later he is still there. In the Writer's room, he can project himself into a version of New York in the Dark Place using his typewriter and using a storyboard to map out a story. Using the Dark Place, Wake takes inspiration from the events happening around him and uses them to craft a story so he can escape. Picking up story snippets as he makes his way through the Dark Place, Wake can change the landscape of the Dark Place to fit his needs often in the most disturbing ways. At one point, Wake needed to change a blocked subway tunnel into the scene of a firebombing, at which point his writings manifested a burnt train car, filled with the husks of many victims at the hands of a cult. The Writer's Room is important for Alan, a writer is who he is so it makes sense that his prison would be a room with a typewriter in it. While he's been using it to find a way to escape, he has been struggling to find a way out and often it's because of him and his rigidness.

The sanctuary for our heroes is a fun little technique that we can access at any time throughout the story, seamlessly. With the developer's access to the Northlight Engine and the switch to the fast loading times of SSDs (Solid State Drive), we can switch to the room whenever we want and for Alan, we can literally change reality around us with just the flick of a button. Alan's writer's room is overall more impactful than Saga's mind place but that doesn't mean that it's less detailed and interactive as solving case files and profiling characters feels very impactful to the story and shows the care the design team took in making both feel pivotal.

Theme - Family

Family is a pretty strong theme for Alan Wake 2. From the 1st second, we are introduced to Saga, it’s through a phone call with her daughter Logan. Alan is trapped in the Dark Place because he sought to save his wife from the Dark Presence. Everything Saga and Alan do as the story unfolds is rooted in their love of family and it resonates with us on different levels and it’s also good to show how the horror story is affecting them both differently yet also so similarly.

For Saga, she comes to Bright Falls to solve the string of ritualistic killings and in doing so finds herself trapped in a horror story with deep ramifications for her family. Following the trail of the horror story, Saga interacts with many different people from different walks of life in Bright Falls. What makes these interactions so chilling is the fact that the people she interacts with seem to know Saga, despite the fact she has never spent any part of her adult life in Bright Falls. Even more concerning is that people are saying the same thing, Saga came to Bright Falls due to some marriage troubles and left when her daughter drowned. As the horror story changes reality around her, it also instils its victims with a new reality, one where Saga lost everything and ran. Not only is the story affecting the residents of the town but it is also affecting her close friend and partner Alex Casey who entered Bright Falls with the memory of Saga's happy family but even he is slowly succumbing to the reality of the horror story.

While Saga also faces the prospect of losing her family she also comes across members of her family she never even knew about. While investigating her life in Bright Falls, she comes to meet Odin and Tor. Rock and Roll legends decades ago, they played a small yet pivotal role in helping Alan face the taken back in 2010. Now in 2023, they return to provide Saga with much-needed clarity and hope. Revealed to be her family with Odin being her Great-Uncle and Tor being her Grandfather, Saga learns much about her family and even where she comes from. Learning her mother left Bright Falls with Saga as a baby, escaping from Saga's mysterious father and Tor being problematic with the father. Not only does she learn about her family she also discovers her Mind Place is an inherited trait from her family, with Saga being a seer and this proves to be her saving grace. As Saga has been struggling with understanding what's happening, Odin and Tor provide her with hope, that the story around her isn't permanent and if she perseveres, she can beat it and save her family. Because of her ability, she can see past the lies of the horror story and with that she can save her family.

With Alan trapped in the Dark Place, his goal is to escape, in large part so he can get back to his wife, Alice. Getting back to Alice is etched into his mind with her name written all over the Dark Place. As Alan inches ever closer to finding a way out of The Dark Place, he often comes across Parliament Tower, where he lived with his wife many years ago. Every time he enters the Tower he always finds his way to his apartment where he learns some uncomfortable truths about himself and his wife. In the years since he has been trapped in the Dark Place, he has been convinced that she was safe but that is far from the truth. As Alan has been reaching out for Alice, so too has his doppelganger, Scratch. Feeding on the darkness in Alan's heart, Scratch has been reaching out to Alice as well, tormenting her, hounding her with Alan's face imbued with anger and cruelty, preying on her with a side of Alan she always knew was there.

Behind the horror and all the darkness is the love of family. Saga fights to protect her daughter from the story and Alan fights to protect his wife from Scratch. While Scratch is working to take everything both heroes hold dear, it becomes painfully clear that they might not get everything they want, as is the nature of a horror story, the greater the save, the heavier the cost.

Theme - Insanity

Insanity. Many people have different views and definitions of Insanity.

My personal favourite fits Alan's journey perfectly. As the iconic Far Cry villain, Vaas Montenegro said, without a few choice words: Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again expecting things to change. This fits Alan perfectly as his entrapment in the Dark Place has trapped him in a loop that he cannot break as he tries over and over again to create a way out. As Alan’s journey continues to progress, we find ourselves enabling Alan as he continues to go through the same cycle with his entire narrative, going from one murder site to the next so he can write a story that will deliver him from his prison.

The theme of going in a loop is pretty strong throughout Alan's journey. After finding a murder site throughout The Dark Place from a story he may or may not have written, he consistently makes his way to Parliament Tower. Everytime he reaches the tower he always wakes up again in the writer's room and continues the same loop. As Alan makes his way through the world he finds video messages from himself which seem to show that beneath the face we see, there is a fractured psyche thanks to the nature of the Dark Place. Every time Alan finds a message it always has a recurring theme, that the cycle will only continue as long as Alan continues to move forward.

Alan is stubborn, he's committed and most importantly, he's a writer. As long as he can, he will write and write until he reaches his goal. This only fuels the power of the Dark Place as it feeds on his misery and even his hope. His hope of escaping is what gives the Dark Place true shape and because he is stuck in this loop, he will continue to try and break through. While his determination is certainly admirable, it can often be to the detriment of others. While Alan has used his writings to find a way out, he has often used the power of the Dark Place to look out into the world and take what he needs. In Control (2020), he unleashed a horrifying entity into the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) which took many lives all so he could introduce Jesse Faden (The Hero of Control) into the fray, which would cause FBC involvement in the events of Alan Wake 2. Because Alan is a writer he doesn't see how his stories are hurting real people and so, like Scratch, Alan's worst enemy is himself as he is unable to stop and not only that but he can’t see just how much he gets in his own way. With this in mind, there are 2 questions to consider.

Is he Insane? or Is he just Human?

Narration - Alan's Story

Narration is a pretty strong storytelling tool but it can also be a lazy form of storytelling. Thankfully just like the last game, Alan’s narration proves to be very useful in adding context and setting a mood. Back in the last game, Alan found himself narrating to himself, in trying to work through the events that are occurring before him with the disappearance of his wife and being pursued by the Dark Presence. It gave us a window into Alan’s mind as we were able to connect with him and it always felt like we were right there with him. While it’s normal to feel like we are supporting a hero, we often don’t hear what they're feeling deep down and it helps so we can understand them.

In Alan Wake 2, his narration returns but in a different form that seems the same but is actually somewhat different. As Alan is stuck in the writer's room, projecting himself into the Dark Place, his narration feels very different. Different in the sense that it doesn't seem his projection is narrating anything but rather his presence in the writer's room makes it seem that he's narrating events as they happen as if they are all part of the new story he's writing and he himself is just the protagonist of his story. This adds to the theory that his psyche is continually becoming fractured and he may be doing this to himself. While he has been subjecting himself to the loop, it's not clear if he's also breaking himself apart but at this point, it wouldn't be surprising.

Plot Device - Manuscript Pages

Like Alan’s Narration, many things are returning from the first game. When a game is made, there are many different things added, not necessarily to make it stand out but to make it a staple. The manuscript pages are one such staple. Returning from the last game, these pages were written by Alan during his imprisonment in the Dark Place. Back in 2010, Alan was manipulated by the Dark Presence residing in the Lake into writing a story to release it. He was able to stop it but not without trapping himself in the Dark Place. Since then he was been writing countless stories in an effort to try and escape.

Now in 2023, his pages have returned, with the latest in a series of ritualistic killings, spanning back to 2010. With Alan stuck in the Dark Place, Saga is now left to find them and they hold horrifying predictions that continue to foreshadow events of the future, leaving its new hero powerless to fight back. In 2010, Wake wrote the story to release the Dark Presence while under its influence but with his last ounce of free will, he wrote an escape, which he was able to make good on and set the stage for his journey in 2010. A dangerous side effect of his writings is the power they draw from the Dark Place. Feeding on artists the Dark Place can make their art become reality, changing the landscape of the physical world. In Alan's latest novel, "Return", he writes about an FBI agent who will help deliver Alan from the Dark Place.

The Manuscript pages Saga finds are about her life and describe the horror she must now face if she hopes to solve the case and protect her family. What becomes interesting about the pages is that they are scribbled with edits, almost as if Alan didn't like what he wrote and tried to change it and in a lot of ways this is true. During one of Alan's endless loops, he returned to the writer's room to find a manuscript for "Return". Written by Scratch to Escape the Dark Place, Alan is horrified to find a true nightmare that threatens to destroy everyone, thankfully he had time to make some edits, but not enough to stop the horror story and in a lot of ways it's his own fault. As he was editing the manuscript, Scratch broke through the door of the Writers Room and killed him, shooting him in the head. This happens pretty early on and near the end of his story, Alan discovers something disturbing. As Scratch was hounding Alice, she eventually committed suicide. A horrified Alan would find his way to the writer's room and confront Scratch, shooting him in the head but really he killed himself when he was trying to edit the story. Going back to what I said about insanity and how Alan gets in his way, Alan had a chance to change the story but unfortunately, he got in his own way which just puts him back in the loop.

Because of this the Manuscript pages Saga finds are incomplete as Alan tried to tip the scales in her favour but not enough to avoid the Horror story. While he didn't succeed, he did give Saga the tools she needed to fight the Taken and Scratch. The Manuscript pages are important because they show Saga's path forward but also Alan's help as he tried to edit them. While the Manuscript Pages are powerful there is something else that is much more powerful and that is "The Clicker".

Plot Device - The Clicker

The Dark Presence is old and powerful. No one knows how old it is and what it is truly capable of but we’ve seen it. The chilling darkness that surrounds the town and infects the people of Bright Falls, driving them mad and turning them into creatures of darkness. Back in 2010, Alan was able to resist the power of the Dark Presence and fight back but he didn’t have a lot of options and didn’t have a way to destroy it. That was until he found the Clicker. When he was a child Alan’s mother gave him a clicker to chase away his nightmares, something he carried with him constantly and eventually gifted to his wife as he hoped it would help with Alice’s fear of the dark.

Years later, Alan would need this inanimate object to help him as the Dark presence came for him. Influencing the author to create a way to escape the Dark Place, Alan was able to write an escape route. Thomas Zane, a poet who also fell victim to the Dark Presence years ago came to help Alan escape and even hid the clicker for Alan to find. Alan would later find the Clicker and use it to trap the Dark Presence but in doing so trapped himself in the Dark Place along with the Clicker.

Now in 2023, the clicker would lie at the centre of Saga's investigation and she would fight desperately to find it. After eliminating a Taken, Saga would find Alan on the shores of Cauldron Lake, and after cleaning him up, she would discover that the only way to stop the Taken is with the Clicker. He doesn't know much about where it is, only that it's in Bright Falls. With Scratch seemingly in Bright Falls, the Taken running rampant, and with the threat of her daughter's death, Saga makes it her priority to find the Clicker. In Wake's hands, it can undo the effects of the horror story but she isn't too keen as she believes her daughter's death is because of Wake. While the Dark Place can manifest an artist's dream as reality, the Clicker can make them permanent and that is exactly why Scratch wants it. With the Clicker, Scratch would be able to spread his influence over the whole world. Naturally, this is something that Alan and Saga must prevent but they don't have a lot of time and a horror story is difficult to fight.

Driving Force - Saga’s Family and Wake’s Freedom

While different aspects of the horror story convince Alan and Saga to continue down their path, there is a driving force behind them as they fight through the Darkness of the town. With Saga, her driving force is her daughter's survival. As part of Scratch’s story, Saga lived a whole different life in Bright Falls due to some marriage troubles. Living with her daughter for some time, Saga left after an accident where her daughter drowned. Leaving Saga scarred and grief-ridden she left Bright Falls never to come back, or at least that’s what the horror story is telling her and us. In reality, Saga never spent any time in Bright Falls and her daughter never drowned.

Driving into Bright Falls, Saga is speaking to her daughter on the phone and when she speaks to her partner, Alex Casey, he acknowledges the phone call. If there was reason to doubt Casey's existence they quickly evaporated, on multiple instances he is seen engaging the locals in conversation. When Saga finds Alan after his apparent escape from the Dark Place, she learns of the Clicker and pursues it. During her pursuit, she finds clues about her life in Bright Falls and people she has never met are treating her as a familiar face and keep telling her the same thing, that she left after her little girl drowned. With the horror story changing reality, Saga almost feels powerless. Fighting against the Taken is one thing but fighting a story that can change reality is something else entirely.

With Alan in the Dark Place, his main purpose is to escape, not just for himself but for his wife. As he finds himself going through the same loop to try and escape he finds video messages from his wife about how he's been haunting her, tormenting her. While Alice assumes it's Alan, it's actually Scratch reaching out, getting closer and closer. To keep her safe Alan thinks the best way is to escape but as he tries every second to escape, he's just putting more people in danger. Scratch can reach for Alice because Alan keeps reaching for her and Saga is facing the prospect of losing her daughter because Scratch can see she's indirectly helping Alan. While Alan is no villain, his actions continue to impact the lives of many people as he fights to find his way out of the Dark Place and Saga and her family are suffering for it.

Meta References - Nature of the Story

What really defines a horror story? Is it the jumpscares, the prospect of wandering in the dark alone or the loss of life? The truth is it’s all of these things although typically you can get away with avoiding one. Alan Wake 2 however takes full advantage of the horror genre and uses all 3 of these and uses them in ways that makes us uneasy and even surprised at every step. The dark settings of Bright Falls and the Dark Place constantly put us on edge as the Taken could be hiding around every corner, ready to attack. Sadly as a Taken appears we are reminded of the people that have been taken by the Dark Presence that resides in Cauldron Lake. Every Taken is just another innocent victim that has been lost to the story, Wake’s story. There is also no shortage of jumpscares and while we would think they would bring nothing to the story other than to scare us, they do help add to the tension when Taken like Nightingale and Weaver are revealed, otherwise, the game stands on its own without following the simple trope.

In the words of Ritchie Meeks from the Scream movie franchise, “There are certain rules that one must successfully abide by in order to survive a horror movie”. A film buff but also a bit naive, Ritchie did have a point on the rules of a horror story. While his rules made a modicum of sense they don’t apply much to this story but there is a point to his reasoning. With every genre, there are certain rules that the genre must abide by. This applies a lot to Wake and the stories that he writes in The Dark Place as he follows a set structure to fit the genre he’s writing. As such the horror story is filled with tension and monsters which inevitably leads to many victims and a few effective jump scares.

What perhaps we didn't initially realise is that so much of what he struggles through and even what Saga goes through is completely unnecessary. When an artist creates something, channelling the power of the Dark Place, they can completely change reality and even the landscape of the Dark Place itself. This is how Alan can manipulate the Dark Place and change it for his benefit. Now this is the funny part. With his last meeting with Warlin Door, the talk show host who interviews Alan, Warlin drops the act and begins a truly interesting conversation with Alan. Something most notable is when he mentions all the convoluted loops Alan insists on going through and this brings up something that we never really thought about. In the Dark Place, everything is malleable, meaning Alan can change the nature and the rules of the story however he sees fit but his rigidness and the rules he places on himself are limiting him. If he had become more fluid, Alan may have been able to escape years earlier and his journey wouldn't be so difficult. The horrors Saga is facing could have been avoided if he was able to accept these things but naturally, this isn't the case.

As we reach the end of the story, Saga and Alan communicate with each other using Saga's Mind Place and come up with a plan. When Scratch gets a hold of the clicker and enacts his new reality, Wake and Saga make a plan to get it back and enact a new story that Alan has written that can fix everything. Unfortunately as the nature of the horror story, the more people that are saved, the heavier the toll is on the hero. To save everyone, both Alan and Saga will have to sacrifice much in order to get the ending they need and in the end, they may not get everything they want out of it. Wake's ability to write a story is excellent, being a famous and best-selling crime author but as he is set in his ways, he could never fathom the idea of changing the genre so completely and sadly he, Saga and many others have paid the price for it.

Plot Twist - Wake's True Nature

After Saga’s fight with the Taken Nightingale, she finds Alan washed up on a beach on Cauldron Lake, seemingly a result of eliminating Nightingale. From there the story begins to take a weird twist. As Saga fights core Taken like Nightingale and Weaver, she does this in an overlap, a space where the Dark Place and Bright Falls meet. After eliminating each Taken Saga comes across a vision of Wake in the Dark Place. Disjointed fragments of their words barely make it through the overlap but it’s enough that they can be made aware of who they are and it shows just how much influence they're having on the other's respective journeys. Alan knows Saga is in Bright Falls and uses her to write his story of escape and Saga uses Alan’s musings in the Dark Place to dig deeper into the mystery of the Taken. When the cult tries to eliminate Wake while he’s in Bright Falls he is taken into FBC custody (Federal Bureau of Control). When Saga can find the Clicker she works to deliver it to Wake for the sole purpose of making sure he can reverse the effects of the horror story.

Unfortunately, this doesn't go as planned. An oversight, Scratch quickly reveals himself before the Clicker falls into his hands. The malignant figure works to obtain the Clicker but after no small amount of effort on Saga's part, is forced to retreat. After some deliberation, Saga deduces that Wake is still in the Dark Place trying to escape and that Scratch is who she's been dealing with the entire time. To fix the horror story, Saga decides to find a way to get Wake out of the Dark Place and after an intense standoff on the shores of Cauldron Lake, Saga uses the Clicker to get Wake out of the Dark Place but as quickly as he's there, laying washed up on the shore, he disappears. Saga quickly realises that Alan has always been free since the moment she first met him but that Scratch was part of him. In Alan's chapters it's revealed that as his story was closing in the Dark Place, Scratch was able to invade his mind and escape with him. Scratch and Wake are not 2 different people but rather Scratch is a part of Wake and so that means the only way to stop Scratch is to get to Wake which is easier said than done.

Plot Twist - Nature of the Cult

A major plot point that I’ve admittedly neglected is the induction of the cult. “The Cult of the Trees” is an organization of killers that emerged sometime in 2010. From 2010 to 2023 they have been responsible for 4 ritualistic killings in the Bright Falls area. The 3rd and 4th killings are what brings Saga Anderson and her partner Alex Casey to the scene and what thrusts them into the horror story. Their 4th victim, FBI agent Robert Nightingale was in Bright Falls in 2010 at the same time as Wake’s first encounter with the Dark Presence. What makes Nightingale stand out is that he’s the only one to come back as a Taken and after some deliberation, they determine the ritual was interrupted.

On the trail of the resurrected Nightingale, Saga encounters other taken, dressed in Dear Masks, members of the Cult. From here it's pretty easy to connect the Cult to the Taken and even put them in league with Scratch. We can't confirm this for sure but every time Saga must confront a Taken, a majority of them are cult members. While it's never clear, it's a pretty easy thing to link to or so we think. In an effort to eliminate Wake, the cult attacks him at Saga and Casey's base camp and the Cult leaders are cornered, the Koskela Brothers. Pillars of the community and respected members of the town and apparent friends to Saga, their inclusion in the cult was a natural shock but not as shocking as what we find later on.

Thanks to FBC intervention, the Koskela Brothers and Wake are taken into their custody and Saga takes steps to get the clicker to Wake. After Wake reveals himself possessed by Scratch, he kills one of the Koskela brothers. After a brief confrontation with Scratch, Saga questions the surviving Koskela Brother, Ilmo. Ilmo reveals that the Cult was his idea, a group of people dedicated to protecting the people of Bright Falls from the Taken but because they are on the front lines, many of their members become Taken. Presented as the villains from the get-go the Cult's intentions have been actually to scare people from wandering the woods to protect them from the Taken while fighting them at the same time. It certainly gave me a bit of whiplash especially since the Cult have been framed to be the villains of the story but no doubt that was also in part due to Scratch and Wake's story. It's an effective twist but sadly it's not expanded on much further. It would have been good to see the Cult try and reinforce Saga's fight against Scratch but sadly the Cult's plotline essentially ends here.

Presentation - Episodic Structure

Something Alan Wake 2 does well is how well it splits up its story and how much it builds on the opinion that video game adaptations are built for the Silver Screen. Taking an episodic chapter approach, we can follow Alan and Saga’s story in any way we see fit but not until a little while. For the first 2 chapters, we follow Saga until we begin to go back to Alan’s story and explore his time in the Dark Place. While in the Dark Place, he has an interview with a talk show host Warlin Door who is excited to hype of Alan’s 2 new novels, Initiation and Return.

  • Initiation - Initiation tells the story of how Alan Wake is trying to project himself from the Writer’s room into the Dark Place so he can find a manuscript he’s written, using a fictional detective, Alex Casey to guide him. His hope for the investigation is that it will allow him to delve deep enough into the Dark Place that he will finally find his way home by investigating a string of murders perpetrated by the Cult of the Word.

  • Return - Return is the story that succeeds Initiation and follows Alan as he tries to find his way out of the Dark Place by placing a supernatural threat in Bright Falls. What he didn’t anticipate was that he wouldn’t be the only hero in this story and that Saga would take centre stage as she fights to defend the town from the Darkness as part of his new story.

Each story consists of 9 chapters they are cut up so that each chapter is self-contained and follows its own goal which is part of the wider mission that both Saga and Alan are working to fulfil.

Something else that adds to the reasoning of Alan Wake being like a TV show is that it has many instances of Live Action cinematography. While it may seem to be unnecessary it does add even more to the immersion and the performances given by the cast. One such instance is when Alan is nearing the end of his journey in the Dark Place and comes face to face with Warlin Door. Dropping the facade of the Talk Show host, Warlin reveals to Alan that much of his struggles are his own fault and that he keeps pulling people into his dilemma, especially someone close to Door. This scene could have easily been made in-game but I feel that would have taken something away from the magic of the overall storytelling. The scene is excellently directed with an eerie silence and stoic yet captivating performance given by David Harewood (Door). 

Every Live-Action scene was chosen with a specific purpose in mind and seems to be chosen so to deliver the best cinematic scene possible and Remedy has chosen the right scenes that perfectly deliver on the live-action aspect taken for the game. Yet again Remedy shows how masterful they are in delivering excellently directed live-action sequences. Live-action isn't exactly new as it has been an effective Narrative technique they have used in past projects, most notably Quantum Break. Now in Alan Wake 2, the developers seem to have found a perfect balance between live-action and in-game and know how to make it effective without milking it too much.

Presentation - Original Music

Something incredibly special that Remedy did for Alan Wake 2 is create a suite of original songs made by various artists. Played at the end of each chapter, the songs sign off each one as if it’s the latest episode of a show which again adds Alan Wakes’ validity as a TV show as they will either end with a piece of composed music or a 3rd party track. What makes the songs that Remedy use special is that each one was designed specifically for the game and a lot of them were designed as character-piece songs that represent the several characters in the game. Much like the animated video game show Arcane: League of Legends where each song was made for a specific scene, every song in Alan Wake 2 is written to represent a character in the game with a few notable examples below.

  • Wide Awake performed by Jaimes perfectly encapsulates Alan's journey in the Dark Place. For what feels like a lifetime Alan has been stuck in the Dark Place and so much of it can be attributed as a living nightmare but when played at the 2nd of the game's 2nd chapter with Alan's escape it represents how he has finally woken up from his nightmare.

  • Follow You Into The Dark performed by RAKEL represents Saga and in perhaps a broader sense, Saga's daughter Logan. Referencing Saga's ability as a Seer and also referring to the title, Saga's love for her daughter will lead her into the Darkness and as all of Saga's chapters show she is willing to step into the shadows for her daughter.

  • Dark, Twisted and Cruel performed by Paleface represents Scratch. Scratch is the darkness inside Alan, his resentment, his fear and his anger. Thanks to the power of the Dark Place, his darkness manifested as Scratch into a malignant force that threatens to destroy everything Alan and Saga love and he'll enjoy every second of it.

Perhaps the most notable yet brilliant use of original music comes in the form of "Herald of Darkness". While Alan is trapped in the Dark Place he frequently wakes up as a guest on a talk show with host Warlin Door. During one visit, Alan finds himself in the middle of a musical performed by the Old Gods of Asgard, rock and roll stars who helped Alan in the last game. While it does seem a little far out, the musical actually helps to fill in a lot of the blanks in Alan's story and serves as an exceptionally fun recap of the last game describing his journey since 2010 and what he's had to go through since. Remedy did an excellent job at making sure that every piece of music used in Alan Wake 2 had a purpose and wasn't frivolous. They waited for years to make Alan Wake 2 and they wanted to make sure its delivery was brilliant and they succeded. 

New Game Plus - The Final Draft

New Game Plus is an exceptionally fun mode that can make replaying a story even more fun as it allows us to replay the story with everything we found and obtained in our previous run-through. While most notably, New Game Plus doesn’t add anything to the game’s story, this time around it has significant changes to the story’s ending and this in turn had wider ramifications for the Remedy-Verse. In the original game’s ending, Alan is free from the influence of Scratch and Saga gets trapped in the Dark Place. Not willing to accept the outcome, Alan makes his way to the writer’s room and tries to enact a new ending for the horror story. While he’s busy writing it Saga is able to escape from the Dark Place and get into Alan’s Writer’s Room.

As the horror story comes to a close Scratch makes an effort to try and repossess Alan, just as Alan has planned. Alan plans for Scratch to possess him again and for Saga to kill Alan using a bullet of light capable of destroying Scratch. As Scratch possesses Alan, Saga has a brief window to kill Alan and she does. Scratch is gone and so it seems is Wake. With Wake dead, Saga tries to call her daughter Logan to ensure her safety but she doesn't get through. What no one knew was that Alan's wife Alice had been helping Alan all along. After she escaped the Dark Place her memory started fading of what happened until the FBC helped her to remember what happened. To help Alan she left messages for him in the Dark Place detailing what Scratch tried to do to her but she took it to her advantage. Faking suicide, Alice entered the Dark Place again and used her knowledge to help Alan break through the loop which is what the bullet of light is for, to help Alan break through.

Following on from New Game Plus, the story, now known as "The Final Draft" finishes the story. Saga is thankfully able to get through to Logan with the nightmare supposedly over. Alan then resurrects, with the bullet of light doing its job, erasing the darkness from Alan's mind, and destroying Scratch for good. With Scratch gone for good, Alan has achieved his next step in his quest for freedom and he has even reached a new state of being. Bearing the torch of light he is now the master of many worlds, able to influence them, hopefully without the need to create a horror story. What this means for the future is unclear as there seems to be a plot to elevate Alan into a watcher or guardian of many Remedy worlds like Quantum Break and Control but it is difficult to fully ascertain the plans without more context in the future but with the promise of 2 additional story DLC's in the future, there is sure to be a fun adventure in the future that will build on the prospect of "The Final Draft".

Shaan Singh
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