Celebrating its ten year anniversary, and still stuck firmly in the mindscape of its many fans, Alan Wake is a luminous example of genre storytelling.
Alan Wake is a third person “Action-Adventure Survival Horror” from the team at Remedy Entertainment. This game is to Steven King novels as Max Payne is to Patterson novels.
It’s a heavily literary tale of worlds beyond sight of our own, a writer on the edge of his mind and horrors of the imagination coming to life.
Short form pitch: Use a dwindling supply of light generating tools (flares/torches) and the weapons a schlubby writer can get his hands on. You need to stop demons made of literal darkness from killing you and preventing you from reaching your kidnapped wife.
Long form: All of the above, plus it’s got a fantastic world and game mechanics. Alan Wake is an exceptional game because it knows that the world of survival horror is half the fun.
Bright Falls is a twin peaks a like set in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. It’s classic horror fodder. High mountains, pine forests and enough small town Americana going on to make sure that things seem even weirder when the horror starts.
A twilight zone style TV show is playing on TV’s you pass. The radio is filled with small town stories and dial in shows. Or it’s got excellent diagetic music from Old Gods of Asgard playing. This element especially culminates in a jaw dropping set piece in the latter third of the game.
Beyond the world, Alan Wake’s twin resource management of light sources and ammunition for its weapons is just enough of a spin on the traditional survival horror systems to be fresh, even today.
You to weaken monsters from the darkness with road flares and a battery operated torch. Then on to traditional weapons in order to finally deal with them. It’s a well designed system that encourages strategy and planning. This also helps reinforce the strange normality of everything happening in the game. No action hero, Wake is constantly winded by his running or panicking about the events of the story. He’s a sort of in shape writer thrust into a story of his own.
Alan Wake is an unsettling, bombastic and pulpy horror story that earns every plaudit it’s been given.
Remedy’s Control will be getting further expansions that build on the story and world of Alan Wake. So it’s a good time to flick back to Bright Falls and see how the decade has treated a classic game.
(All images belong to Remedy Entertainment)