A Story Analysis of Alan Wake

Allan Wake is a bizarre game with a distinct gameplay formula and story that I find it hard to put down I loved Alan Wake when I played it years ago but today I wanted to see if those memories still held true so in honor of Alan Wake 2 releasing in just a couple weeks we're going to be revisiting the story of Alan Wake I will not only be telling you what happened in the story so you're caught up to speed but I'll also be critiquing it along the way this video will be covering the base game it's 2dlc episodes the spin-off American Nightmare and then a brief discussion about remedy's other game control as alen wi does make a brief appearance there as well without further Ado though like the video if you enjoy and subscribe for more content like this and as always let's get started Allan Wake starts with the titular character Allan Wake arriving by boat in a small town called bright Falls Allen's a world famous writer most well known for his crime detective series Alex Casey which fils the New York City detective through his various trials and tribulations his last book called the sudden stop would be his sixth and final book in the series which ends with Alex Casey's death he'd always wanted to move on from Casey in his story and figured that now was the time his next book would have been called departure a new story with a new protagonist but he hasn't written anything yet it's been 2 years since his last publication and he hasn't even written the title page Allen is suffering from severe writers block so he and his wife decided to take a vacation at bright Falls a small remote Town far away from the eyes of the public so we can focus on relaxation with the hope that by the end he'll feel rejuvenated and ready to start his next best seller ironically one of the game's best aspects is its characterization just as Al wi was skilled enough to create a lovable character with personality and flaws so to his remedy with Allen alen Wick comes off as a nice guy but one who's also a [ __ ] he tends to lose his temper quite fast and is less than pleased when he finds out that the server at the diner just so happens to be one of his biggest fans the town itself is also just as impressive as it's that typical any Town USA location where everyone knows everyone and the population is likely less than a thousand or cell it also lays into that Trope by having his arrival be right around the time of their annual deer Fest which is a yearly parade the town has and it's one of those things that only this town would care about due to the aforementioned server though his stay in bright Falls is not going to be as low-key as he thought he also happened to make friends with the local radio host of the town and within about 15 minutes pretty much everyone knows that he's visiting the town for the time being unfortunately being spotted is the least of his worries as when he visits the diner and asks for Carl Stucky the man who's supposed to give him the key to his place he finds a Woman in a Black Dress similar to the one you'd wear at a funeral she ends up giving him the key instead and both he and his wife Alice leave to visit the home but not before Carl slucky rushes out of the diner hoping to give the couple their key so if he had the key the whole time then who's the woman well we'll find out very shortly as the visit didn't go is expected Alice who puts up with a lot more of alen wake [ __ ] than I'd be able to wants to surprise him with a gift she got which is a typewriter she figured that a change in scenery and design would be enough to get those creative juices flowing again but Allan argues with her saying that he came here to relax not work causing him to storm off and get some air right after this the lights in the home go out which freaks Alice due to her fear of the dark Alan then rushes to her location before she's somehow dragged into the water below like any normal human Allan attempts to rescue his wife before he wakes up in a car crash alongside the crash is not only a talking bright light that is guiding him away from the darkness residents of the Town who are dead set on killing him but also the title page of a book he is the author of called departure the same book he planned on writing after this vacation but apparently he already wrote welcome to Alan Wake it should go without saying but Alan Wake has such a strong opening it's filled with so much mystery that it's practically begging to be uncovered it also does a great job of establishing relationships and character personalities alongside those Mysteries you can tell that Alice and Allen both love each other but the relationship is a bit Rocky Allan got thrown into Celebrity Status due to his books and that came with all the positives and negatives that that entails he is successful wealthy and has a happy marriage but he's also very short-tempered as he not only yells at his wife over minor problems but he also punched someone from the paparazzi for getting in his face underneath all that though is someone who cares about his family and his friends it's just buried under mountains of stress and this constant ruers block isn't making things any better Ellen's ruers block is also a lot more meta than it may seem as his condition is all too familiar to not only remedy but to me as well remedy entertainment like Allan struggled for years deciding how they wanted to craft their story you might recognize remedy as the creators behind max pain and at the time outside of one game called Death rally in the 9s that was their only intellectual property similar to Allan remedy had to cut ties at max pay after their second game apogee saw Ware who was responsible for publishing the original game was also responsible for publishing the sequel and was in talks with take to interactive about bringing the game to consoles not only did take to agree but they would also later buy the IP from Ry and give it to Rockstar who would then create max pain 3 Alan Wake killed off Alex Casey and didn't know what to do from there and remedy had to say goodbye to their beloved franchise both had to move on but didn't know where to start for years alen Wick was drafted up to be a totally different experience the story elements and inspiration seem to been consistent from beginning to end but remedy originally planned to make the game open world allowing the player to move freely about the town they also wanted to introduce survival mechanics into the gameplay Loop by having the player scavenge for supplies during the day while they defending themselves against the hordes at night none of this came to fruition though as they struggled to make it work for 3 years they stuck with this idea only to stop and force themselves to do something different they literally took the various leads on the project and put them in a room together with the intention of locking down a gameplay formul that would work well with the rest of the game each of these entities was stuck in a constant Loop of strength failure and self-doubt not sure if they would succeed well seeing as we're talking about it today it's clear remedy was successful in creating their vision for the game as it not only has a host of additional content like the dlc's and the spin-off title American nightmare but it finally got its sequel less dramatic than all of this is my connection to wake if you have notifications for the channel turned on which you should by the way you'll recall that I mentioned recently how I felt burnt out after a talk of plasmus 2 it had nothing to do with the game as I really enjoyed it but I just think it was the timing again against my better judgment I tend to prioritize this channel over my own health now I'm not destroying myself so don't worry about that but it has been a while since I've given myself a proper break it is both a blessing and a curse that I can set my own hours when making YouTube videos if I want to work on a video for a couple of hours a day then I can do that but if I want to spend every waking moment of my life working on it then I can do that as well I think the last time I genuinely had a break outside of a couple hours a day where I relax and play some other games was the late August since then there hasn't been a single day where I'm not at least making some kind of progress on a video whether that be something I plan to release in a week or in a few months it's stressful and stupid but that's the issue no one is telling me to work this way yet here I am conforming to the standards I set for myself while I still haven't taken that official break and likely won't until the end of October after Alan Wake 2 is out and even then I still might not given that I'm thinking about making another video like this on remedy other games for the time being alen wake has been my light in the darkness videos like these allow me to be more expressive with my writing and my opinions and while that's nothing new Allan Wake felt different like all the creative juices I lost had finally come back to me it also helps that the game itself is filled with enough complexity and skill for writing that I can talk about it forever and the intro is just the tip of the iceberg here circling back to that comment about the gameplay though the next rational question would be if the open world didn't work what did they create instead and that's shockingly harder to explain than I thought Alan Wake is equal parts survival horror and action yet it feels like neither of them at the same time I describe it as the game having elements of each but not fully committing to either Allen wake is an action game but unlike some other titles like Uncharted a Red Dead Redemption where the game play is more fast-paced and intense Allen wake is slower more methodical you want to take your time with each encounter as you only have a limited amount of ammo at any given time this Falls more in line with survival horror but it doesn't fully dive into that realm either due to its other mechanics most games of the genre like Resident Evil have resource and inventory management built into the game playay Alan Wake has no standard inventory with the only real choices being whether you want a shotgun or a hunting rifle as you can only carry one at a time the game does have that two type system that Resident Evil has but instead of it being ammo and health pickups it's ammo and batteries Allen regenerates health over time so Health items like syringes herbs or health packs are unnecessary instead batteries are used in its place due to how the gameplay works the enemies we Face are called taken individuals used by the dark presence and entity I'll talk about later who are little more than THS hell bent on killing Allen to defeat them you must first use a light source like a flashlight or a lamp to burn away the darkness any light source works but your flashlight can be aimed or focused as the game calls it letting you burn quicker but at the cost of battery's power once it's empty you aren't forced to replace it though as it recharges on its own but sometimes the moment calls for a quick swap doing this leaves them open to the American special a healthy dose of 38 special right to the brain a revolver and flashl are going to be Allen's goto's for a while until you find more weapons and the game does a good job of adding more weapons to spice things up you could find the aforementioned hunting rifle and shotgun for shooting flares and flashbangs for light and the most important weapon a flare gun which serves to solve both problems as while I personally have't been shot with a flare gun I can't imagine it feels great taking one to the chest it sounds like a typical survival horror game but as I said it only takes elements from it as ammo is quite abundant for the most part assuming you're playing frugally and since each section is split into episodes you actually lose your inventory at the start of each episode that typical game long feeling about worrying about running out of ammo only last as long as the episodes do so once you start to catch on how it works you start to become more aggressive and wasting more batteries and ammo because you're only going to waste it for that current episode not the whole game I think my biggest complaint with the game playay though is that often times the hits you take are incredibly cheap most of the enemies you face like the gados of Resident Evil love to throw their axes at you and these guys have some aim the game is also obsessed with spawning enemies behind you and while that's not a problem it's why I call it cheap sometimes you could Dodge attacks like it's re3 but outr running them them is almost out of the question due to Allan having the lung capacity of someone with asthma it really starts to show its flaws when one of the areas later forces you to run past the enemies instead of attacking and it's probably where I died the most as Allen can only Sprint for about four whole seconds and the enemies no matter your speed will always catch up to you I guess it's why I actually enjoy the health regen system as I can't imagine I would have been too happy wasting healing items on damage that isn't always my fault overall though its gameplay is solid and also quite unique as well the concept of chipping down an enemy's armor foring the weak spot isn't anything original having light be the source of it changes things it's probably the only game I can think of where the most deadly weapon is a flashlight and kind of reminds me of Fatal Frame where a weapon of choice is a standard everyday object regardless the sheer originality behind it would have already been enough to earn some praise in my book luckily it's also a joy to play as well returning to where we left off Allan Wake has just awoken from a car crash despite the fact that 2 minutes ago he was diving into a lake to save his wife he also happened to find the title of a book he was going to write but apparently already did these manuscript pages are part of the game's Collectibles and oddly enough tell the story of the game before it happens just about every page you collect explains something about the story whether that be an event that is about to happen or one that already has sometimes though the pages do talk about other characters and what they're up to which is usually something Allan and the player won't experience it creates this weird feeling as you sometimes read pages only for it to happen exactly as it was described almost like we characters in a book Rusty kept coughing blood my eyes were drawn to the twist shape of his broken leg the attack had been vicious Max whined in his cage Rusty's eyes were wild with fear and Terror he gasped Mr wake it happened just the way it was on that page oh hell it happened just the way it was on that page you'll also notice that the voiceover you heard was Allan narrating the story every manuscript page has a narration like this and most of the dialogue spoken as narrated by Allan too giving the player a sense of what he's thinking in the context of the story the idea of the characters speaking like they're a part of the book is great such as the constant usage of being overly descriptive when it comes to a character's emotions or setting the scene as books often times need to be this way so the reader can create a visual image of what's going on what's rather fascinating about this is that this style of Storytelling is now a remedy staple as each of their games protagonists narrate or comment about certain events in some fashion while looking for Alex I had ended up in the middle of a big- Time crime operation because if that's possible POS our options are very different Emily Pope I don't know her but I like her already oh [ __ ] something clicked I could reach out and stop time in a focused area help me you don't know what you're doing while I like the way remedy handles this idea in each of their games alen Wick's version has always been more surreal given where the narration comes from this idea of surrealism is likely from The Game's Inspirations and references Alan Wake wear said things on its sleeve its main Inspirations are Stephen King's novels The Twilight Zone and David Lynch's Twin Peaks and it is not subtle about it where some games would take from these things or recreate a famous scene Allan Wake just straight up has Stephen King in their universe and also has Allen reference him constantly I had to figure a way out of this any second now and stuck would be knocking on the door with his ax like Nicholson in The Shining Allan Wake while a video game is definitely trying to make itself out to be a TV production that's why the chapters are called episodes or special features and why each episode starts the classic previously on Allan Wake it's a game filled with inspiration so much so that you could argue that the entire plot of the game is Just Stephen King's novel misery which I'll explain later for now though let's actually continue with the plot the first episode outside of the opening moments is quite light on the details when it comes to the story as is mainly trying to get the player accustomed to the gameplay one thing that's important to mention though is that you can find a TV that plays a clip of Allen talking to himself while inside of another room throughout the game are also a couple of QR codes that can be scanned as well the original was a bit more comical than the remaster with these links as they were either things like a conversation about how Allen wck is good enough to be played even when not on a couch referring to the game's PC port or a very 2010 style meme of Sam Lake making the iconic max pain face but the remaster changed it to link to unlisted videos on remedy's YouTube channel that talk about Allan and his time in the dark place similar to what we talked about before regarding the whole it feels like we're characters in a book thing it's something that will be explained later but it gives off the feeling that not everything is right in the world at the moment if the shadowy figures didn't already give it away of course while making it back to civilization Alan finds a phone and calls the sheriff with the hope of finding Alice once the sheriff arrives she asks what happened to Carl Stucky the guy who was supposed to give us the keys to the cabin Allan is reluctant to tell her not only because of the Shadow figures part but because Carl was one of them and Allan had to kill him so at the risk of being put in a psych wward or arrested he holds his tongue the two then drive back to the cabin hoping to search for Alice only to find out that it's not there and that there never was a cabin on the lake this connects to something Alice mentions earlier in the episode where she says that the brochure mentioned that the cabin was near the lake not on it now things are really starting to not make sense and if you think it's going to light up at some point you are sadly mistaken it's only going to get weirder from here episode 2 starts with a flashback of Alice and Allen in their New York City Apartment the couple are quite creative people which is like they withd drew them to each other in the first place as Allen is a writer while Alice is a photographer this also meant that Alice was working closely with Allen on his projects as she would take head shots and promotional photos for his upcoming novels the point of this flashback is to show how even though they tend to fight both of them still love each other by having Allan give Alice a clicker that he was given as a kid as a way to ward off the darkness whenever she gets scared returning back to the present day Allan is being questioned by the sheriff for regarding what happened to him last night before getting a phone call from a person who claims to have kidnapped Alice they also want him to stop talking to the police and for Allan to give him the pages of the manuscript he is rightfully shocked by this information not only for the more obvious reasons but also because of the manuscript as he's just as confused about its orgin as him and is shocked to not anyone else knows about it Allen is at a bit of a Crossroads thankfully his agent Barry wheeler comes by and picks him up Allen that gives him the lowdown of what's going on here but obviously he finds it to be ridiculous realizing he has to do this on his own he sets off to lovers Peak the location the kidnapper specified they meet up at eventually he does meet with the kidnapper but due to an altercation with the dark presence the two have to work together Allen with the flashlight and the kidnapper with the gun unfortunately the man's a [ __ ] shot which makes this section very annoying to complete the two then argue over Alice in the manuscript before Allen somehow punches him with enough Force to knock them both off the railings and onto the ground uh sure either way due to them being split up thanks to this they have to meet somewhere else which he says will be the bright Falls Coal Mine a good portion of this episode and the next are centered around this situation and it's not really something I'm a fan of episode 3 is definitely the worst of the bunch as it's just a series of go posts being moved around as alen is forced to go from one location to the next as the kidnapper keeps moving the location like each episode it does have small things added within it that do make it an enjoyable experience but the actual narrative progression of the plot in this episode is lacking that small thing I talked about earlier though is the Cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 which shows Rose the waitress from the diner asking Barry and Allen to come to her house at the trailer park as she has the manuscript pages that the kidnapper wants before pans around to show the old lady in Black again implying that she's not only controlling Rose but that she has nefarious intentions revolving around the Two Men episode 3 will then pick up from there with the two arriving at her trailer I know it's a game and the plot needs to progress but it is always incredibly odd when someone acts completely out of character and no one bats an eye to it hey this is really good Rose yes my manuscript I really need it I understand I know what you need amus to inspire you both of them will eventually discover that Rose lied about the manuscript but it's too late as they've been drugged alen then experiences a dream with a deep SE diver who talks to him about something taking over his wife the voice is also eerily similar to the talking light I briefly mentioned earlier meaning they're one and the same what they is though is still unclear when Allan wakes up he's greeted by the brightfalls police and an FBI agent named Nightingale he might be the funniest character in the whole game due to his unwavering commitment to his own bit Nale is familiar with Allen and his work so when he goes to arrest him he uses other writers names to make fun of him like in this scene where he goes get him up Hemingway you're under arrest referring to American novelist Ernest Hemingway he does this numerous times throughout the game that I don't even think he ever calls Alan by his real name once nowhere to run now Dan Brown you back away from me don't hurt it who I'll get you yet even if it kills me you hear me you hear me HP love CRA I've got you now Raymond Chandler it's all here all the evidence including conspiracy to murder a federal agent there's no way you're walking out of here you hear me in there Bret Easton Ellis huh I love the implication that the man is such a fan of books and novels that he's able to name so many famous authors throughout history due to his love for the medium because there is no other explanation for him being able to say a different author every time on the spot without fail given his love for books he probably likes wake's writings too but he doesn't want to admit that to the guy he's trying to arrest my only issue with Nightingale is that like some other characters a lot of his backstory is absent in this game due to being in other material outside of the DLC and spin-off Allen Wick also got a novel called Allan Wake a short book called The Allen wake files and a prequel TV show bright Falls it's another one of those situations where certain events or motivations are revealed in this media and nowhere else even though they should be in the game you don't know and won't ever know why night Andale came to Bright falls in the first place if you only played the game as the other media talks about him having a dream of the dark place and seeing Alan Wake in those dreams so we became obsessed with finding him so he could figure out what's going on even with that knowledge Nill doesn't even follow that logic as he tries to shoot him twice so unless he's a spiritual medium in his spare time I don't think he'll be able to talk to Allen if he's dead without the other sources n Andale is an agent who's trying to arrest Allen for an unknown reason and while I'm glad we at least got some confirmation about what his plan was not only should it have been touched upon in the game the novel the info comes from is apparently not even Canon so do with that what you will either way he's here at the trailer park to speak to Allan regarding his experience but now wants to arrest him seeing his two adult men showed up to a young girl's house and stayed their way later than they should have which doesn't look good Allan isn't exactly making his case any better by running immediately after as I said earlier this is the episode where alen continues to run from one place to the next hoping to find the kidnapper before being instructed to go somewhere else it first started at lovers Peak then the coal mine and of course because he didn't show up there he now has to meet him at miror Peak Lookout as tedious as the plot of this episode has been it's at least accurate to how Allen is feeling right now so Silver Lining I guess one thing you will find here though is another TV but unlike the first one that had Allen on it this one is of a TV show called night Springs it's very clearly a riff on the Twilight Zone as it has a similar logo style and intro chime both also deal with strange and mysterious occurrences like this one where two ladies are casually staring at a man who's inside of a portal in the middle of their basement there is actually one of these TVs in each episode I just decided to talk about it now since if I was to go right into night Springs during the first episode we would have been 20 minutes into the video and in terms of story would have been still at the car crash so I figured I should you know at least move on with the goddamn plot before rambling again my personal favorite episode though is one titled Quantum immortality Quantum immortality is uniquely tied to Quantum suicide as the idea is that we as humans are are Immortal as every time we're close to death we Branch off into another reality where we didn't for the sake of an example let's say you get into a car crash fortunately you're alive maybe you're hurt and have some broken bones but alive nonetheless well that might not be true maybe you actually died but were sent into another reality in which you did live this is because of the many worlds interpretation which is basically that there are infinite number of realities and an infinite amount of possibilities so circling back to the car crash given there is an infinite amount of things that can happen there was a world where you die in a car crash one where you live and one where the crash never happened among an infinite number of other unique scenarios Quantum immortality claims incidents like this happen all the time but every time we have some near-death experience we're taken out of our reality and put into another one where we lived or where that event never happened it's also implied to be seamless so it's not something you would ever notice meaning that if you ever had a near-death experience in your life you might have actually died in your reality but were moved to another where you did night Springs parodies this by having a guy put a gun to his head claiming that the gun will never be able to shoot when pointed at him thanks to machine he built he proves this by shooting himself resulting in a blank before shooting at the ceiling which is when the bullet fires the gun is also a standard M9 pistol meaning it should fire if a bullet is loaded as it doesn't have a revolving cylinder like a magnum the episode ends though with one of his assistants accidentally tripping over the cord that's connected to the machine followed by the demonstrator pulling it once again only to be shot and killed as he was too focused on proving his point to his colleagues that he didn't hear his assistant's comment what does this have to do with the story of Alan Wake honestly nothing but I love talking about hyp iCal questions like this although assuming the theory is true you could claim that every time you're close to death in this game Allan is not simply alive but actually died and was just moved to another reality one where he survived his encounter with the taken Food For Thought getting back to the story once Allan finally arrives at miror Peak he and the kidnapper meet but he seems to be freaking out and claims that he never kidnapped Alice to begin with the dark presence then arrives which blows Allen off the Lookout Point and into the water he's then once again visited by the deep sea diver before episode 3 comes to a close episode 4 has Allan waking up next to a Dr Emil Hartman he is someone we saw earlier before Allan socked him in the head he has a tendency to do that it seems the reason was that Alice felt that Allan needed counseling to fix the writer's block and talk to Dr Hartman since he claims to specialize in creatives this is likely the reason behind brif Falls being the couple's vacation destination as Alice probably saw Dr Hartman's work looked him up and then found out that he resides in bright Falls which also means that her whole plan was to get Allan help and not simply relax I'm sure that relaxing on vacation was a part of the plan but it wasn't the only step it seems which connects to the typewriter gift that she gave him well Allan found that Alice wanted to get him help by using Dr Hartman and hit him for convincing his wife that he needed such help fast forward to now when Dr Hartman is now treating him for those exact reasons Dr Hartman is a therapist who specializes in creatives like artists writers and game devs bit of an odd specialty but it makes sense when his motivations are taken into account Harmon immediately starts the conversation by saying Alice is dead and that she drowned making our attempts to rescue her pointless he also claims that Allan is suffering from severe hallucinations regarding things centered around Supernatural forces of darkness which is exactly what we're going through Allan and likely the player don't believe a word he says and they shouldn't Hartman is trying to use Allan for his own gain so that he can manipulate the dark place a supernatural plane of existence in all fairness though he is right about Alice she isn't technically dead but she is trapped in the dark place so us trying to find her like we've been doing has been fruitless but Allan isn't the only patient that Hartman's trying to use the two patients that are actually important are the Anderson Brothers named Odin and Tor as they have a history with the dark place and the supernatural entities that we've been fighting that's why upon meeting Allan they tell him to visit their Farm as they have a secret message for him the less important but more comical patient is The Game Dev who talks about his experience with a previous game he worked on he talks about how Publishers don't know [ __ ] about game design and how they only want to add things to the game so they could say they contributed without thinking of the ramifications it can have like how One publisher wanted to add mullets to the game because they thought it'd be funny and then when the game is in slow motion they could call it mullet time because according to them that name was a hook for their demographic this is clearly referring to Max pay's Bulet time mechanic the mullet part though was apparently something that actually happened according to an old tweet from one of the original developers in which mullet time was considered for the game since it was going to combine Max Payne's bullet time with alen Wick's redneck setting while the game does have no shortage of slow motion shots bullet time style slow motion never made it and likely for good reason after Allan is done looking around the building he is then ESC Ed by one of the staff members to his room before immediately trying to escape Allan while escaping also runs into Barry who came by to get him out before being taken by Hartman's men who stuffed him in the room this leads into an incredibly long Chase throughout the woods as well as a large concert using the Anderson Brothers Old Stage once inside the radio plays a song by the brothers that says find the lady of the night that's how you reshave Destiny this lady of the light is Cynthia Weaver who we also briefly saw in the first episode they assume that she's somewhere back in bright Falls but it's getting a bit late so the two are going to start the search tomorrow morning in the meantime they decide to drink their brother's extremely potent moonshine which causes them to pass out what Allan sees after his a vision of what happened to Alice which shows him diving into the water but instead of waking up in the car crash he's then getting out of the water and then goes upstairs before meeting with that old lady in Black who then tells them that he can use the typewriter to get Alice back from the dark place so he writes a story the title of it is called departure the name of the manuscript Pages we've been finding and the entire plot of the game with the big twist Finally Revealed let's take a step back and get you up to speed years ago a couple came to brightfalls for a vacation their names were Thomas Zayn and Barbara Jagger Thomas is the deep sea diver we've been seeing and Barbara is the lady in Black however one day Barbara drowned in the lake the same one that took Alice Thomas was distraught when he heard about the news but through Dr Emil Hartman he figured out a way to get her back see cauldron Lake the one that surrounds the cabin is basically a portal that transports those who enter it into a place called the dark place a supernatural plane of existence that is different from our own Dr Hartman somehow learned about its Supernatural powers and sought to control it which is why he specializes in creatives because for some odd reason the dark place responds to creative works by using them as a means to shape reality remember when we talked about the pages of the manuscript spelling out the plot that happened before us that's because the pages Alan wrote while in the dark place reshape reality well after talking with Dr Hartman Thomas Zayn decided to use his skill of poetry to get Barbara back this however came with the unintended consequence of an unknown entity known as the dark presence coming through and taking over Barbara body while the dark place is simply a place the dark presence is a formless entity that resides in the dark place the dark presence uses the writings and creative works that flow through the dark place in order to achieve its goals Thomas Zayn realized what was happening so using his poems he created a story that saw him in the dark presence why from existence he had to do it this way or the dark presence was going to escape and wreck havoc upon the world from then on Thomas would disappear from the world along with the dark presence that had previously used his wife's body as a puppet Thomas Zayn like his lover though would also be taken by another presence this one called the bright presence I'll explain some of this later but the dark place needs to have balance things can't be taken without at least giving something up in that same vein a dark presence cannot exist without a bright presence as light and dark are Polar Opposites of each other at the time neither of the entities had forms but now the wife is being used by the dark and the husband the light I should clarify though that this Thomas isn't actually Thomas just the bright presence using his body as a form an ARG for the game called the house of Dreams say that Thomas ended up making a baby unit iverse where him and Barbara are together again implying that they are gone from this world this means that the deep sea diver we meet is just the bright presence well it is a nicer entity than the dark presence we still don't know what its motivations are outside of wanting to defeat the dark presence regardless the dark presence and Thomas would then disappear from the world it wasn't until the 1970s when the Anderson brothers and their band the old gods of Asgard would come by and also do battle with the dark presence how they succeeded is also never explained but they were successful in stopping it once again it would then lay dormant until the arrival of Alan Wake Allan and Alice would then arrive at The Cauldron Lake Alice falls into the lake and Allan Dives in after her but instead of staying in the real world he's then transported into the dark place this is where he would meet with Barbara who is once again just the dark presence using her body to tell Allan how to save Alice the same thing Thomas Zayn tried to do in actuality the dark presence had no plans of making Allan save Alice those TVs we find of Allen are him talking to himself about what's going on and he mentions how Barbara is making edits to his story the dark presence is trying to get Allan to release it into the real world under the guise of rescuing Alice if the dark presence gets its way and Allan plays along he'll be trapped here Alice will still be dead and the dark presence will be released into the real world Alan after a few days of writing discovered exactly what we just talked about that the dark presence was trying to manipulate him so now he's trying to make edits to the story the problem is that there are stipulations to make things simple the magic of using creative Works to change reality won't work unless it's a proper piece of work realistically the dark presence could make Allen right and then the dark presence leaves the dark place place and destroys the world the end but that wouldn't work though because if you think about it from a meta perspective that being the end of a story would suck and thus the magic won't work the story has to have actual tension drama stakes and character motivations furthermore just as he can't McGuffin his way out of a situation he also can't create something to help him either Allen isn't allowed to just summon a minigun and then start blasting his way through bright Falls he can only create the idea of something so if Allen needs a bridge to cross a river instead of it just creating one maybe a piece of debris explodes ends up creating a bridge in instead he also can't go and edit the already existing Pages either say for example you and I were going to write a story but we switched off every page meaning I got all the even pages and you got all the odd well naturally you and I would have different ideas for the story but since we can change what the other wrote I have to somehow guide the story back to the way I want which would then be Fall by you trying to guide the story back to where you want this is what Allan is doing with the dark presence he had already written a few days worth of pages based on what the dark presence wanted so now he has to continue the story make it a decently written one that can't be Sol any kind of DSX MAA while also guiding it back to where Allan wants the story to go that he can win and beat the dark presence it's probably why remedy decided to use a typewriter as the machine as typewriters physically imprint the ink onto the pages meaning mistakes can't be undone just as Alan can't undo the work he has already done for the dark presence this story that he is writing is of course what we go through after the car crash Allan is basically writing a story about himself wherein he fights the dark presence and its minions kills the entity and escapes the dark place that's what Allan has been doing because his writings can change reality thanks to the power of the dark place and is why everything he wrote down in the manuscripts has already happened Allen then wrote this book which is once again the entire plot of the game so far for a whole week until the bright presence still using the form of Thomas Zayn came by to distract the dark presence Allen then used this as an opportunity to escape so he ran outside of the cabin and took a car before getting into a car crash which is what happened all the way back in episode 1 that is the real story of Alan Wake circling back to an earlier comment of mine this is why I said that the game's plot is Lucy based around Stephen King's misery as Allen is trying to write his way out of imprisonment within the dark place using his writing skills misery Stars famous author Paul Sheldon who early on in the story gets into a car accident fortunately a nurse named an wils played by Cathy Bates in the film adaptation happened to be nearby and was able to rescue him from his car and take him back to her place unfortunately she's a crazed fan of his who sees that the ending of his new book series to kill off the main character so she locks him in a room and forces Paul to rewrite the story in a way that she likes similar to Allan Paul also has to make could flow well as he tries to rush the ending which annoys her even more eventually it ends with him killing Anne escaping and then publishing a new story not within the misery series which ends up being quite successful what's rather interesting about this is that this isn't the only game to take a page out of the story as Resident Evil 7's bedroom DLC also has elements of misery in it one of the more iconic scenes in the story sees Paul trying to escape from the house when Anne steps out for the day this proves to be quite difficult as the crash severely injured him to make matters worse and to come back a bit earlier than he thought so we had to put everything back the way it it was or she find out he tried escaping he puts everything back perfectly except one ceramic penguin That's facing the wrong direction as punishment she bashes his leg in with a hammer whereas Al way takes the writing your way out of your own personal prison part bedroom in classical resin evil fashion takes the leg bashing part as you play another victim of the baker's Clancy who's trying to escape the bedroom before margar finds out just like with Paul there are certain steps in the Escape process that can act as points of no return where margarite will come by and check on you so you have to remember what the room looked like before you started rearranging everything and if she catches you she will not be happy it's cool to see other games takes on the concept as is a genuinely great film I might even go as far as to say it's one of Kathy bates's best roles but seeing as she's been in over a 100 different Productions since the 70s that's going to be a hard choice to make getting back to Allan we along with him now understand what happened between him diving into the water and him waking up in the car crash he still doesn't seem too familiar with the events of the story even though he wrote them but he does recall not finishing the ending which is his new objective Ive return to the cabin and finish the story to get there though we have to find Cynthia Weaver who is that lady of the light the Anderson Brothers refer to in their song upon waking up from The Nightmare though he is then greeted by the gun of agent Nightingale who puts him under arrest episode 5 starts right after this with Allan and Barry in prison Nightingale also seems to have taken the manuscript Pages as he recalls some of the events that are happening right as he's speaking about those said events it then ends with him being taken by the dark presence just like before he doesn't waste any time calling him by another writer name but I do like the nice touch of his last words calling Allen Stephen King seeing as he was the game's biggest inspiration unlike night Andale Sheriff breaker believes Allen and like the kidnapper is going to be killing the taken alongside us thankfully she is a much better shot than him and for maybe the first time ever is more self-aware than any MPC I've ever seen as partway through she and Allen are stuck and need to get through a locked door but instead of the typical video game cliche where we defend while they open the door she's actually smart enough to recognize the helping us first would make opening the door easier due to her being under less stress I literally couldn't believe it Sheriff breaker also tells us that Cynthia Weaver lives at a decommission power plant because yeah that makes sense and then further adds that we can go there via Chopper if we can get to one a large chunk of this episode is going to be centered around us running through the derc streets of bright Falls to get to that Chopper given what we talked about earlier regarding the dark place I should clarify that everything we've done outside of that cabin has been in the real world so it's not like we're still trapped in there from the car crash to now we've been in the normal everyday bright Falls it's like why remedy set the game at night outside of the darkness and taken thing as many people would be asleep and not hear the dozens of bullets going off in fact this episode actually plays into this as it's the first time we started shooting near the town and one of the residents assumes it's people just celebrating deer Fest early by shooting off a few rounds into the sky since you know Supernatural things like this aren't normal so we shouldn't expect the residents to think that that's what's going on after about an hour of back-to-back combat encounters we then meet with Cynthia Weaver she's here to direct us to the well-lit room a place created by Thomas for the next person to find Cynthia has also been helping us along the way as she's the one leaving all those yellow markings throughout the forest that usually lead to extra ammo and batteries it's here where she explains what happened to Thomas which we talked about earlier about how Barbara died and how he tried to get her back inside the wellet room though is a single shoe box with the clicker in it the same one Allan gave to Alice which as we know was originally given to Allan by his mother well this was actually designed by Thomas as before he died he wrote in a loophole that says everything about him in the dark presence would be erased from existence except for the items in the shoe box which is the clicker along with a manuscript page that details the time Allan received the clicker from his mom this is where things start to get confusing to say the least this implies that Thomas Zayn created Alan Wake but we know that's not possible as we've already discussed how things can just be created out of thin air so Alan Wake wasn't magically made by Thomas Zayn but that begs the question how was the clicker here and how did Thomas know about it well kby assumed that while he didn't create Allen wake he nudged him enough in his life that it lined up with him going to Bright Falls like giving him rudder's block for example but even that is strange because remember the entire plot of the game is a copy of the manuscript that Allan wrote during that weekl long stay in the dark place so that would mean that part of the story Allan wrote is about him creating Thomas Zayn who then writes his poems at bride Falls only to have Thomas guide Allen to brightfalls which leads to the start of the game but that doesn't make sense either because once again you can't create things out of thin air and thas Zayn and his battle with the dark presence was done in over with likely before Allan was even born so that's not possible some have even gone as far as to say that Allen and Thomas are the same person or that Thomas is Allen's father the latter is only because Allan never met his father and these two clearly have a connection of some kind but the former is based on the fact that the Anderson Brothers call him Tom instead of Allan and dialogue right at the end of the game has Thomas arguing with Barbara saying you're not Barbara you came back wrong referring to the dark presence taking over her body instead of just coming back to normal like he wanted but the person speaking is alen not Tom like I said confusing it's one of the game's many unanswered questions questions and it's something fans of the game still discuss today as remedy has yet to give an official answer if I were to throw my two cents into this unending pool of Darkness I think Thomas and Allan collaborated on this incident Allan wrote a manuscript page about the clicker and its significance to Alice Thomas luckily saw this and was able to make the clicker appear for Allen if we assume Thomas was the one who nudged Allen to arrive in Bride Falls then that tracks but if we assume that Allan was the one who's been nudging the story then it's possible that he wrote about Thomas who himself wrote about the clicker and played it there for Alan sort of like he controlled him to get him an object he would need for later it's not the most clear-cut explanation but it's all I've got I think what really makes all this Troublesome is figuring out what's involved in the story we have the manuscript pages to read though but we don't know how much of the world's events were created by Allan did he make Thomas Zayn in the dark presence fight or was that something that already happened it's not worth establishing a beginning for the book either CU you could always write flashback moments to give context which is actually what Alan Wake does as page one starts with the nightmare he received received right in the beginning of the game but page 40 or so talks about Thomas and Barbara So figuring out what Allan did or did not create in the story is practically impossible either way let me know what you think as there are no wrong answers here thanks to there being no answer to begin with with the clicker in hand though Allan can now go back to the cabin to defeat Barbara aka the dark presence and write this ending Barry naturally asks why he can't just write a here but Allan clarifies that not only is the page unfinished and is still on the typewriter but he also has to be thorough about this as Thomas cut Corners in his work which is why to scrap the whole thing and remove himself from existence given the shoe box loophole idea he had Thomas likely wanted the next person who in this case would be Allen to stop the dark presence but also learn from his mistakes don't cut Corners like he did at the center of the lake this time is not the cabin but a giant tornado destroying it then sends Allen into the dark place inside he meets with the bright presence who tells him to go to the cabin before he leaves he gets introduced to another Allan called Mr scratch who will apparently greet his friends once he's gone forgive me for passing by this insane Revelation but we're going to have to Circle back to that statement later as the implications are far too much to discuss now afterward we go through a few sections where we use our light to burn Words which summon whatever the words spell out before Alan meets with the dark presence use the clicker and defeats it or at the very least relinquishes its control over Barbara's body with everything finished Allan sits down and writes the ending but he realizes as he's typing that things need to have balance cause an effect guilt and atonement stuff like that this is why Allan decides to swap places with Alice the ending of departure rewrites the event of Alan Wake said Allan is the one who died not Alice Thomas tried to take someone who died and make them alive again but didn't take someone alive and turn them dead he was just taking without giving back thus disrupting the balance of the world Allen's ending keeps the balance instead of Allen alive and Alice dead it's the other way around one of the couple is still dead while the other is alive meaning the balance is still stable since he's in the dark place though this seems to create some kind of loophole allowing him to still be alive but just stuck inside the dark place meaning all he has to do now is just escape and he and Alice can be together again again the final scene then shows the town of Bri Falls celebrating their annual deer fest with Rose Looking eily similar to Cynthia Weaver in the way she holds the lamp with agent Nightingale watching over her in the background who seems to have L his prior encounter with the dark presence sadly neither of these two will make another appearance in both the DL seas and spin-off so this will likely be elaborated on in Allen wake 2 speaking of that additional content they continue Allen's story as he attempts to escape the dark place but before we transition over to that I want to talk about the base game for a moment I think it's pretty clear why I stand with Alan Wake it's why the word in the thumbnail is bizarre it's probably the best word I can use to summarize my experience with Alan Wake the Crossovers between survival horror and action coupled with the story within a story narrative that has so many twists and turns it makes it hard to keep up make it one of the most original games ever created for all of its Inspirations some of which are more on the nose than others alen Wick is a one-of-kind experience and is one of my favorite games of all time I remember really enjoying my time with it years ago and I'm glad I still hold the same opinion about it today the storytelling and characters were incred inedible and are created with such care each character is so distinct that I really had trouble remembering someone as I could easily recall a unique personality trait or scene that they appeared in Allan as a protagonist is just as incredible a sort of everyday guy thrown into his own hell who's forced to use his intellect of Storytelling to write his own story it takes something that Allen is a professional at and puts his wits to the test from the gameplay to the story everything about Allan Wake oo his originality and is one of the reasons why I have such a fascination with this game even if I end up disliking them I always appreciate when games go that extra and create something the world has never seen before it's all too easy these days to make something basic or just reuse old ideas for the years to come but remedy has never been one to do that though as each of their games always feel like the contrary and Allan Wake is no exception Allan's relationship with writers block and how that related to my burnout was also a unique coincidence I didn't expect to relate to but in a way both of us are likely getting what we want Allan needed this interaction to happen as much as he would disagree as it was the kick he needed to get his ass back to writing the guy went from writing not a single word in 2 years to a whole story story in a week and while I didn't suffer as badly as him writing about Alan Wake and his struggle has been a nice change of pace compared to the stuff I was making a few months ago sometimes the unique event needs to occur for things to change unlike Allen though I didn't have a supernatural entity hellbent on killing me and speaking of which it's probably time we get back to the story so we can see what happens on Alan wake's Journey after the release of the game Allan Wake would receive two dlc's that add two episodes both episodes are connected as they follow Alan Wake and his attempt to wrestle with his mind after being confined to the dark place I know this is a bit fast but the ending of the DLC has Allen meeting with himself in the dark place basically we're in Allen's mind trying to find balance so he can focus on writing his next story being in a foreign environment such as this would naturally cause someone to go mad which is why the DLC focuses on this specific task keep Allen from losing his mind everything we experience is in his mind it's just a more visual version of it cuz without that the whole DLC would be alen rolling on the floor talking to himself therefore the antagonist of this DLC is Allan himself not the the one from earlier we'll talk about him soon but literally him Allen is battling his own mind the Allen on the TV is the part of him that wants to give into the dark place and be one with it while the other Allen the one that we control is the other part of his mind that wants to reject the dark place the DLC from start to finish is going to be Allan looking for a way out while constantly being harassed by himself given that a world famous writer is now the antagonist the level design is going to be a lot more creative than before I like to think of both the DLCs in American Nightmare as experimental anyone who's played the games could probably test the fact that the game is extremely focused on one thing when it comes to gameplay while the game may have the odd change here and there like using a car or maybe a lamp as a light source 99% of the game is based around this flashlight and your guns these future pieces of additional content attend to experiment with this idea to see how far they could push the game's design as for the DLC remedy tried to see how far they could push the game while still staying in its own boundaries as the gameplay Loop is still the same but how it's achieved is different the dlc's take that word premise from the last 10 minutes of the base game and stretches that over the course of the whole whole experience rarely will you find an item gun or even ammo without at least coming from these words due to this the game is able to change how combat encounters are tackled there seems to be more enemies and less ammo this time around as I found myself being Corner more while also having to switch weapons more frequently unlike the main game we also don't find manuscript Pages things they taking place all in his head instead we find a brief clip from the TV Allen that talks about our next encounter it does tend to spoil the surprise a bit but I still think it manages to work every so often due to the placement of the words take these next few encounters as an example under the church is a room filled with furnaces each of them has the word blast taped to the door when destroyed it releases a fiery explosion in a straight line which is perfect for dealing with the hordes of enemies in here but it's just as deadly to the taken as it is to you especially since a few of the sections have tight hallways so not only is the current furnace exploding but the light is also bright enough to blow up the one directly in front of it similar to this is another area that is an open plane filled with words there are some words like enemy which spawns taken Raven which spawns birds and boom which releases a bright flash AK came a flash bang the enemy of this location is one flock of birds which on its own isn't too Troublesome but given that the birds fly around everywhere you might accidentally spawn another flock by accident furthermore the bright flash from the boom would not only produce enough light to burn the words surrounding it but it might even cause a chain reaction of other flashes if you aren't careful these aren't the only changes the DLC makes just the ones that stood out as there is a new enemy type which goes invisible when covered in darkness an arena covered in lamp posts that flicker on and off allowing you to use them as weapons and even just minor changes to more basic areas like this Warehouse that has extremely narrow walkways making combat more claustrophobic well not too interested in the words as a concept the experimentation going on here is remarkable I think a large reason why I wasn't super into the idea was because it feels like a mechanic that excels in small numbers having almost every area include these words is a bit exhausting but if they instead had them pop up every now and then that might be better I do honestly hope though that this does come back for the sequel as I can see it getting fully realized as long as they're in short bursts as for the story Allan has stated before is going through his own mind in an attempt to battle back the dark thoughts of him wanting to be taken by the dark place while literally this is Allan thinking his way out of the problem metaphorically we're going in and shooting the taken aka the dark thoughts in order to save him this presents quite a unique approach to the story as that means everything we see is coming from Allen's mind we end up going through some old locations as they're familiar to Allan and we'll also meet some old characters but it's not the old cast directly more so how Allan perceives them Barry shows up about halfway through the first episode when is struggling to understand what's going on he claims that it's all in his mind and that's why he's here before Allan replies with I must love punishment then what is likely happening is that Allan for as much as he and Barry May fight finds comfort in having a friend here by his side to further play into the memories part the game also has a few flashbacks like the one where he and Alice are taking photos for the new book alen followed this up by saying it was a great memory I wish I didn't see it Ellen probably doesn't want to think about the good times since he's currently in the worst time of his life and may never be able to go back to those times by far the worst one is a conversation between Hartman and TV Allen where the two play a call from Alice who berates him for how he treated her you for your childish temper and the arrogance and self-indulgent pride that undermined all efforts to drag you out of the hole you insisted on digging for yourself I hate you for leaving me in the dark with that insane monster [ __ ] all you had to do was act like a loving human being for once in your life and stay with me if your traumatic exit hadn't been more important then making sure I was all right she would never have taken me I don't know where you went but that's okay I don't want to know I don't think I'll ever be all right the only thing that keeps me from killing myself is the hope that I'll never see you again ouch I I just can't argue with that I think I should stay here before I ruin what life she has left it's important to remember that Alice never said this it's just Alan thinking about Alice and what she thinks of him as humans we tend to think of the worst possible outcomes and obsess over things until they feed on us this is what Allan is doing that bad part of him wants to stay here in the dark place away from Alice because he thinks that she'd be better off without him that other part of him though doesn't want that he didn't waste all this time and effort to get her back just to leave her alone so no matter what it takes he's going to get out of this place the final fight of this DLC is figh a shadowy version of Allen's friends which are just manifestations of Allen's negative thoughts towards himself before coming face to face with himself this is where the reveal about all this being and his head comes in but now that he's gotten his mind stable he's ready and calm he's in complete Zen if you will no more negative thoughts and no more worries all that matters is just getting out of here which is when he starts to write the next book return for it only lasting a couple of hours the DLC episodes are quite fun the combat was great and the new word mechanic was interesting enough for me to hopefully see it return in the sequel the story while not as impressive as the base game is a direct continuation so it's actually going to not be as interesting due to the mystery already being revealed even with its focused story though it was was still able to give us a tease of the events to come as Allen is in the process of wuning his escape from the dark place again which is where American Nightmare begins American Nightmare is technically considered a direct sequel to the original game but given we already have a proper sequel on the way it's best to call it a spin-off I like to think of American Nightmare as Allen wake 1.5 a bridge to close the gap between the two games that it gives us context as the how we go from one to the other this time instead of battling his mind Allen's going to have to battle his doppelganger Mr scratch for a long time though I wrote off American Nightmare as a really boring spin-off but it was only until very recently that I realized I'd gotten it mixed up with another game spin-off also set in bum [ __ ] USA which was Dead Rising 2's K zero how I managed to mix these games up is one of life's greatest Mysteries I'm afraid I was still correct about the K zero thing to be fair as I feel like Dead Rising 2 really excels over a long period of time as it allows the player to experiment and gain better weapons whereas K zero can be finished in about 2 hours but with American Nightmare I was slightly off off I'm still not a huge fan of the game but it's definitely not as boring as my delusional mind used to think it takes about two whole minutes to realize how different things are when compared to the original American Nightmare is more focused on action as it throws more hordes at the player than ever before and the gun types have been massively increased instead of a pistol and shotgun there is now a nail gun an SMG an assault rifle and even a full auto shotgun the flashlight also no longer chips away at the darkness simply by aiming you can only damage them by focusing The Beam with the trade-off being that it recharges faster than ever before along with with new weapons are also new enemies like these big hillbilly chainsaw guys and one of the more distinct creatures being this taken that can transform into a flock of birds to avoid damage the game even manages to bring back the open world concept as each level could be explored freely allowing me to look around for more manuscript Pages which is going to be important is there what gives you access to the new arsenal of weapons if the base game was a mix of survival horror and action American Nightmare would be Allen wake's formula with full-on action just like the dlc's were experiments to see how far they could push the game while still keeping its core values American Nightmare is about seeing how far remedy could push the game before it goes completely off the cliff unfortunately while I didn't mind it too much I much prefer the more methodical and slow combat from the original in fact in an interview with Sam Lake he says that allenway 2 is going to be more survival horror focused which means each game in the series now fits on different points on the gameplay Spectrum so you might have brain damage you're about to do great things with a magic piece of paper and you came here from another dimension no I'm from New York I I was just visiting another dimension as for the story American Nightmare is a spin on an episode of night Springs which in and of itself is just the game's version of The Twilight Zone Allan used to do work for night Springs and did some writing for the show before going solo one of the stories was about a warrior of light taking on the forces of dark which is what the story of American Nightmare is all about our Champions are Alan Wake and Mr scratch one of light and one of dark we saw Mr scratch at the end of the game very briefly but we didn't get a chance to talk about him it sounds like an actual joke but I truly mean this when I say it is not far off to call Mr scratch evil Allan Wake he is the physical manifestation of all of Alan wake's worst qualities whether he has them or not when Alan Wake disappeared into the dark place many likely wondered where he went the dark place was then able to take those stories and ideas and create Mr scratch it's also implied that the bright presence created him as a way to balance the dark place back in the base game when we first saw him it said that he would greet Allen's friends while he was gone similar to how Allan traded places with Alice to keep the balance Mr scratch is likely another type of balance Allen stays in the dark place but nothing from the dark place is coming out which is why Mr scratch was created and then released admittedly though all of that is speculation as his motivations are completely unknown and American Nightmare doesn't attempt to answer any of it either despite that though he is such a good villain his whole stick at least for this game is to make Allen's life a living nightmare he remarks on how he's probably going to kill Barry when he sees him since he's annoying as [ __ ] as well as play the role of Allan to deceive Alice only to kill her once he gets bored we also get to see some of his action through the TV and the guy is a complete Maniac I know they all say that right and she's giving me the eye so I make a couple of moves we have a couple of drinks and then things start happening but I say I have to go to the bathroom first uhoh right she's got no idea watch this this is going to be Priceless hey don't stop it's just getting good watch [Music] this yeah did you see that oh man did you see her Bo else Animals As for what the story actually focuses on well it's basically Mr scratch and alen wake fighting while the two are trapped in a Time Loop American Nightmare has three acts with three chapters each chapter is the same location meaning you'll visit each location three times surprisingly the game actually has enough insight to recognize that would be boring as hell to do three times over so the game has you skipped the objectives each time you go through the loop for example in act one for reasons that are still beyond my comprehension Alan has to place a CD in a boom box turn the valve on an oil dere and flick warning lights on which somehow cause a meteor to crash into a satellite which itself crashes into an oil dere destroying it in the process you'll also have to do this again in act two but one of the NPCs here remembers the past Loop and puts together some of the puzzle for you so you only need to get the batteries for the lights then in act three the whole thing is already complete so you just need to start the activation sequence it still doesn't make the whole thing any less tedious but they at least try to make the subsequent runs a bit better the whole objective here here is to go to the observatory and print out a signal which is supposed to tell Allan what to do when he gets to the drive-in theater these steps are supposed to stop Mr scratch and give Allen away out of the dark place the issue is that the first two runs don't give you the complete picture so you have to go through the whole thing multiple times to get the last piece of the puzzle through this mechanic American Nightmare also proves a longstanding argument of mine and that's that a bad game doesn't always have bad ideas back in 2018 Bethesda release Fallout 76 which was universally regarded as an awful game while I personally think it's gotten better over the years I'm aware enough to recognize that by multiplayer and Fallout standards it's not that great still it was able to improve a system from the previous game Fallout 4 since the main objective of that game is to be a little more than a trash hoarder you'll find yourself picking up every random object in existence sometimes though you end up picking up an item you didn't want but to drop it you have to find what tab in the inventory the item belongs to assuming of course you even remember what you grabbed Fallout 76 added a new tab in the inventory called new which shows all the items you picked up and orders them by how recently you grab them this was such a great mechanic stuck in a mediocre game which is why I'm glad Bethesda recognized its potential and put it in Starfield remedy seems to have done this exact thing with American Nightmare as the scene setting you do throughout this DLC may have made its way into the sequel while it's not out yet so we can't be completely sure how this mechanical function alen seems to be able to take scenes from other places and write them into his story which in gameplay will allow you to change the full scene possibly giving you an exit that was otherwise blocked it's why at the end of the day I appreciate what both the DLCs and American Nightmare tried to do as they allow remedy to essentially throw [ __ ] at the wall to see what sticks without compromising the Integrity of the main game the open World style didn't work for the base game but there's no harm in trying it again in a small or more compact title I still don't think it's amazing even in American Nightmare as I much prefer the linearity of the original game but it was a valiant attempt regardless while going through the loops though you start to realize that the people here seem to recall the past Loops such as this girl Emma Sloan who remembers that she died in a previous loop it's never really explained why unfortunately but this does seem to take place inside the dark dark place what is also not explained is some of the things that are talked about within the DLC like how Barry now manages the Anderson Brothers who are back to writing music or how Barry and Alice are trying to figure out what to do with alen's work now that he's dead I don't recall the game ever mentioning how Allen is able to know what is happening in the real world outside of the dark place or if all this stuff is just part of his story since remember this whole plot is just a part of his new book Return which we saw at the end of the DLC it's another Thomas Zayn situation where the line between what is and what isn't a part of Allen's story is quite blurry all this ends with Allan finally completing the puzzle which plays a film Real Alice made of Allen and her as a memorial given his passing this was somehow able to defeat Mr scratch ending the loop the final scene then shows Allan and Alice embracing one another as he's finally able to escape the dark place and be reunited with the love of his life or that's what he thought would happen both control and Alan W 2 confirm this but that last scene didn't happen it's what Alan wished happened he's unfortunately still stuck in the dark place with no idea if he'll ever get out American Nightmare while not the best product out there was a nice experimental attempt at expanding Alan wake's gameplay while also giving remedy more opportunities to use their unique styles of Storytelling to create more mind-bending Tales Allan Wake the special features and American Nightmare are all wonderful examples of how impressive remedy is it making games while I wouldn't exactly call Allen wake underrated it's definitely a game that should have had more mainstream attention it's a one-of-kind piece of work and I hope this video proves why if it wasn't clear from the type of games I tend to talk about here the more complex the story is the more I'm intrigued and while it doesn't automatically mean a basic story is bad a complex story usually applies some kind of original idea that makes it complex whether it be from software's uses of item descriptions kojima's style a plot twist in double crosses or remedy's attempt at making a story within a story where the author plays the protagonist who acts out everything he just wrote It's all interesting enough for me to at least look at it and say where the hell is this going to go alen wake was and always has been a great game to me I love the original back in the day and I enjoyed the remaster just as much its gameplay was engaging and its story can be very hard to piece together which ultimately makes this quite difficult to talk about as alen wake isn't just a small series anymore as a new entry would further expand the universe and I'm not talking about the sequel for years there was a theory that all of remedy's games were connected in what's been called the remedy connected Universe for a while it was just speculation and fan Theory such as how different characters are play by the same actor Like Jesse feden protagonist of control who shares the same actress with Quantum breaks Beth Wild this wouldn't be confirmed though until control as its second DLC awe Stars Alan Wake before we get there though I want to give a brief rund on of what control is all about I won't be critiquing it or going as in- depth with it like I did with Alan Wick though as I'll likely save there for a future video still I want to at least catalog what Allan was doing in this DLC while we're here as the events of both games could play a role in Allen W 2's narrative control Stars protagonist Jesse feden who is currently visiting the FBC or the Federal Bureau of control the FBC basically handles all manner of paranatural phenomena and they have different names to classify different items altered items are weird objects that aren't exactly dangerous but don't act in a normal manner like this fridge that hurts you if you don't look at it continuously above that are objects of power which are altered items that have a connection to the astral plane like the hotline a rotary foam with the dial missing that only can be used by the director of The Bureau as it allows them to contact the dead as well as other paranatural entities like the board the highest of tiers belongs to awes or altered world events these are events that occur when paranatural forces invade our world a good example of an alter world event would be the three times the dark presence has done battle with bright Falls those fights against Thomas Zayn the Anderson Brothers and Alan Wake all count as aw's in fact the bureau has numerous documents on the event so they're aware of what occurred during the game something consistent amongst remedies games that they all happen the year the game was released alen wake for example takes place in 2010 the year the game was released Allen wake 2 is supposedly going to be 13 years later which matches up with the 2023 release date by that metric control then takes place in 2019 meaning it's almost been 10 years since Allen left breit Falls so it's no wonder that the bureau has already caught on to the incident in fact breit Falls is quite unique as it's the only awe on record to have occurred in the same place more than once the DLC starts in typical Allan Wake fashion where Allan writes something in his typewriter which then plays out a few moments later giving off the impression that he's controlling the events of the DLC like how he wrote the events of the base game some have even gone as far as to say that Allen influenced the whole plot of control regarding the FBC and the hiss while I don't personally agree with that it does seem to stem from the fact that Allan knows a lot about the FBC and Jesse even mentioning Polaris her paranatural entity by name which is something only Jesse knows this also goes back to the discussion we had in American Nightmare how does Allan know that Barry was managing the Anderson Brothers if he's been in the dark place the whole time I don't recall the game ever mentioning how Allan knows anything outside of the confines of the dark place but let me know if I'm wrong either way this DLC is another attempt of Allen to write his Escape through his writing he sets up a conflict between Jesse and Dr Hartman who's now turned into this monstrous being since the incident at bright Falls the FBC have cataloged numerous findings interviews and experiments they managed to find two altered items which were a coffee thermos of reference to the in-game collectible and a manuscript page similar to that there was a document in control that talks about the bureau discovering that people have been selling altered items on the black market and Allan's manuscript Pages seem to be a part of that list too they also have a note mentioning that Dr Emil Hartman and agent Nightingale are currently missing however they were able to find Dr Hartman later but placed him on arrest for not only violating normal laws but laws pertaining to the bureau Hartman has then been at the bureau ever since but he's definitely seen better days furthermore through some other notes we find out that FBI agent Alex Casey was looking for information regarding the brightfalls awe which yes is as crazy as it sounds because that means Alex Casey is no longer a fictional character but a real person now on top of this the first time we meet Allan we can see him talking with Thomas Zayn but as we know Thomas is gone this has led to two theories which are that this is the bright presid presence who is just using a different form to talk to Allen or that this is Mr scratch pretending to be the diver that Allen has conversed with as remember Allen isn't really on speaking terms with Thomas SL the bright presence as we never see him outside of the diving suit furthermore the bright presence Thomas Zay Duo is voiced by James mcaffrey but this Thomas Zayn is voiced by Michael peretta the voice of Allan and Mr scratch either way this person claiming to be Thomas Zayn says that Mr scratch is still out there confirming that he didn't die at the end of American nightmare but this person claims to be handling it and Alice has actually reached out to the bureau on her own to talk about her problems as she's been having nightly visions of Allan she managed to catch a photo of him on camera and it's a real charmer to cap things off the end of the DLC sees Jesse defeating Hartman by turning on the lights which is a nice touch and then peppering him with bullets once he's defeated Langston a fairly important member within control calls Jesse and tells him that they have an alert about another awe the confusing part is that it's not only in bright falls again but it's also said a few years in the future now at the time this was likely teasing something out Alan Wake related fortunately we have the gift of hindsight and we know that this is specifically talking about alen wake 2 which will have us return to Bright Falls once again this may not sound like a ton of important information but this was always designed to be a Side Story as ultimately the DLC is a part of control this is Jesse's story not Allen's but it was nice to see Allan make an appearance regardless what this means for the future is uncertain but at the very least Jesse is aware of Allen and the awe coming to Bright Falls so I'll be interested to see if she or another agent arrives during the events of the sequel I've said it a million times before and I'll say it a million more I love Alan Wake it was a game I enjoyed years ago when I was a teen and it's a game I still enjoy today from its gameplay to its story Alan Wake is a game enveloped in originality and passion its concept of using light against your enemy was something I hadn't experienc at the time and while the combat can still feel a bit cheap at times it's something I enjoyed regardless it story though is easily a highlight of my experience and is a testament to remedy's Talent this recursive story about Allan desperately trying to save his wife and battling the horrors of unknown entities while writing a story that he's about to perform and act is mind-bending enough to make your brain hurt but it's a story that stuck on me for years and years and with the release of the sequel it'll likely stick around for a few more just like Allan though I'm hoping that this next game will be the last is why I would like more games in this series I want nothing more than to see him Escape for now though both of us will have to remain in limbo while we await the release of the sequel but the hope that this will be the last book Allen will ever have to write again thanks for watching thank you for watching today and I hope you enjoyed it's been a minute since we've had an hourlong feature on the channel so glad to be back the next video will obviously be on Allan Wake 2 also I know I'm super late to this but I don't think I ever actually officially mentioned it in a video but thank you for 300,000 subscribers it's a number I never thought I could hit and I couldn't have done it without you so thank you as always like the video if you enjoy and subscribe if you're new thank you to my returning viewers are coming back to another video and take care everyone goodbye

Channel: Gingy

Views: 228,986

Keywords: alan wake story, alan wake ending, alan wake dlc, alan wake american nightmare, alan wake lore, alan wake story explained, alan wake american nightmare ending, american nightmare story, alan wake 2, alan wake 2 gameplay, alan wake 2 ending, alan wake review, alan wake analysis, alan wake 2 analysis, gingy, alan wake remastered, alan wake remastered story, alan wake remastered ending, alan wake ending explained, alan wake control, control awe, alan wake awe

Id: XoV-OZrBhdQ

Length: 67min 53sec (4073 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2023