Summary
After 13 long years of waiting, fans are finally getting a sequel to the 2010 psychological action hitAlan Wake, and it’s only a few short weeks away now. ThoughitsMax Payneseriesput the developer on the map,Alan Wakewas still one of Remedy Entertainment’s most influential titles, and though the first game certainly has its flaws, it’s easy to see why it’s become such a cult hit over the last decade. If the pre-release buzz is to be believed,Alan Wake 2is going to deliver a spooky experience that’s even more compelling than its predecessor.
Set 13 years after the first game,Alan Wake 2centers itself around two protagonists, with one being the titular crime fiction writer himself, and the other being an FBI agent named Saga Anderson who’s trying to uncover the mystery behind his disappearance. While Remedy has made it very clear that newcomers will be able to enjoyAlan Wake 2without having played the first game, it’s always a good idea to have a bit of a plot refresher before jumping head-first into a sequel, especially when it’s a series as trippy asAlan Wake.
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The Mystery of Bright Falls
The firstAlan Wakeopens up with the titular protagonist giving players a brief overview of the last few years of his life. Once a highly celebrated crime fiction author, Alan is suffering from a two-year-long bout of writer’s block, and in an attempt to help him Alan and his wife Alice take a little vacation to the mountainside town of Bright Falls. On the way to Bright Falls, Alan has a vivid nightmare in which he’s being chased by shadowy figures, and a mysterious character teaches him to use the light to defeat them.
Whenthe two arrive in Bright Falls, Alan heads to a nearby diner to collect the keys to the cabin they’re heading to. Rather than the landlord Carl Stucky, Alan runs into a mysterious old woman, dressed in all black and wearing a veil. This woman says she’s there on Carl’s behalf and hands him the keys to the cabin.
As Alan and Alice drive away, Carl runs out of the diner, shouting that they’ve forgotten the keys. When the pair arrive at the cabin in the middle of Cauldron Lake, Alice tells Alan that she’d actually brought him here to see the famed psychologist Dr. Emil Hartman, who apparently specializes in assisting artists and authors. Feeling betrayed, Alan storms out of the cabin but quickly turns around when he hears Alice scream. Alan then watches as Alice is dragged into the lake by a shadow, and he jumps in after her.
Some unknown time later, Alan wakes up in the seat of his car, seemingly having just crashed in the middle of the woods. With no memory of how he got there, Alan makes his way through the woods and is attacked repeatedly by shadow figures. Alan soon finds a page of a manuscript entitled “Departure,” which was the name of the book he had just started to write, but now it had seemingly been completed for him and describes the events that are currently happening to him. Alan eventually findsthe local sheriff, Sarah Breaker, and after begging for her help, the sheriff shows Alan that there is no cabin on Cauldron Lake.
After a night in the police station, Alan receives a call from an unknown figure who’s claiming to be Alice’s kidnapper and demands the remaining Departure manuscript pages. Alan’s agent Barry Wheeler accompanies him on his quest to find the missing pages, and the two run intoFBI agent Robert Nightingale. While Barry distracts the agent, Alan meets with the kidnapper, but upon reaching his location Alan finds the kidnapper being tortured by the old woman dressed in black. The kidnapper then admits to Alan that he never had Alice, and the two are pulled into Cauldron Lake by a shadow tornado.
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Discovering the Secret of Cauldron Lake
Alan wakes up in Dr. Hartman’s psychiatric hospital, and he tries to convince Alan that he’s just having a psychotic break following his wife’s disappearance. The hospital is soon attacked and destroyed by the darkness, with Alan barely escaping with the help of Barry. After asking around town, Alan and Barry learn thata Dark Presence lives in Cauldron Lakeand has tried to escape the lake before using a poet named Thomas Zane, trying to convince him to write a way out of its prison and taking on the form of his dead wife Barbara Jagger to manipulate him.
As Alan and Barry get drunk together, Alan finally remembers writing Departure in the week he blacked out after jumping into the lake, and realizes that the Dark Presence is trying to use his writings to escape the lake, just as it tried to do with Thomas Zane back in the 1970s. Alan and Barry are found and arrested by FBI agent Nightingale, though he’s attacked by the shadows, and upon seeing proof of the Dark Presence, Sheriff Breaker takes the two to a woman named Cynthia Weaver, someone who knew Zane. Weaver takes Alan Wake to a place known as the “Well-Lit Room,” and shows him an old light switch called “The Clicker,” which Alan imbues with magical power through his writings.
With the Clicker in hand, Alan dives back into Cauldron Lake and finds himself in a mysterious in-between alternate dimension known as The Dark Place. After finding the Dark Presence—who’s still appearing as Jagger—Alan uses the Clicker to destroy her with light. But while the villain is gone,Alan still needs to finish the story. Sacrificing himself, Alan frees Alice but traps himself in the Dark Place, where he’s seemingly stayed for the last 13 years.
Alan Wake Remasteredis available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
