Game Review: Alan Wake (Remastered)

I had the fortune of being introduced to the incredible games of Remedy Entertainment a few years back when I picked up and played Control. From start to finish, I felt immersed in an intricate world layered with subversion and trippy concepts.  While I didn’t quite come to understand or appreciate the depth of Remedy’s approach to game development at the time, I can still acknowledge they brought a unique quality and flair to their video games that no other developer really could.  I’ve let a lot of time pass before deciding to dive back into the catalogue of Remedy Entertainment, and in honor of the spooky season, it felt appropriate to dive into the dark and mysterious world of Alan Wake. 

Developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Game Studios, Alan Wake originally came out in 2010 as an Xbox and Windows PC exclusive title. Taking great inspiration from the televised format of storytelling, Alan Wake plays out as a third-person, action-thriller shooter in which you play as a best-selling author who comes to a remote town and faces supernatural threats inspired by his own written works. While the game sold slowly during it’s initial release, the critical reception the game received showed there was a lot of value behind the title, hence it’s developing popularity.  On October 2021 Remedy Entertainment released a remastered edition of the game, compiling all of it’s DLC along with a litany of visual enhancements and gameplay tweaks.  For the purpose of this review, I have chosen to play the PS5 edition of the remastered game.

Alan Wake is a renowned writer who had produced a number of best-selling books within the crime and thriller genres.  In the wake (no pun intended!) of his success, Alan is struggling with writer’s block as he is trying to come up with ideas for his next book. To help with his literary struggles, Alan’s wife Alice takes him on a vacation to a rural lake-side town known as Bright Falls, to help give him some time to reflect and hopefully gain some inspiration. Despite their well-meaning intentions, Alice and Alan’s cozy retreat soon takes a dark and sinister turn when Alice is kidnapped by a mysterious supernatural force and Alan wakes up several days later with little memory of what happened.  After he wakes (Again, no pun intended), Alan soon encounters dark and shadowy figures known as the Taken as they begin to attack Alan the local residents of Bright Falls.  As the days cycle slowly, Alan must brave the dark and face the Taken and the Dark Presence that manifests them in order to complete his story and save Alice.

There’s a lot of inspiration baked into the core of Alan Wake’s narrative that is easy to pick up on.  The game literally starts out by calling a reference to Stephen King and the remote Washington-town of Bright Falls seems like a clear homage to Twin Peaks.  What sells me a lot on the narrative behind Alan Wake is its episodic format. Remedy Entertainment lean big into weird and abstract concepts and layer the narrative between the game’s episodic structure like a trail of breadcrumbs.  It works to invite the player to keep pushing forward to solve the mystery behind Bright Falls and the darkness that has manifested around it.  Alan Wake himself is a fun protagonist to follow as he doesn’t fit the conventional norms of an action thriller hero.  He’s corny in a lot of ways and his down to earth reaction to everything feels oddly relatable in funny sort of way.  That’s where a lot of the Stephen King inspiration comes from, I feel when it comes to the narrative.  The story knows when to play it cool and mysterious, but in a lot of ways it can’t help itself at times from being silly in a way you can’t help but appreciate.

The gameplay of Alan Wake is also a unique if somewhat flawed element of the game.  In order to combat the shadowy Taken enemies, Alan must rely on light in any format.  His most reliable tools are his arsenal of weapons and his trusty flashlight.  By casting light upon the Taken enemies, the darkness that surrounds them will dissipate, leaving them vulnerable for attack from Alan’s guns.  Alan does gain access to a fair selection of guns through the course of the game, that being revolvers, shotguns and hunting rifles; each helps with particular enemy types and encounters.  When it comes to casting light, the flashlight isn’t the only tool at Alan’s disposal either, as he can utilize a range of flares and flash grenades to cast light onto his situations. I love the concept behind using light to fight the darkness, and the tools on offer give a good diversity to play around with.  My only issue however is that the mechanics and functionality feel too slow and cumbersome to appreciate.  Movement especially feels like the most hindersome aspect of the gameplay, as I found Alan’s controls to be rather clunky and slow.  I died a lot of times just because Alan would take his sweet time moving and combatting a situation.  While I appreciate the variety of the Taken’s human enemy types, there’s moments in the game where the Dark Presence possesses objects and hurls them at you. The time it takes to destroy these objects with light is tedious and you often always end up being ganged up on by the objects and killed more often than not. I think in a sense, gameplay is ambitious if slightly hindered by the dated technology of the time. 

From an audio and visual perspective, the game looks and feels like the part of a Twin Peaks inspired experience.  The lack of color is used to express an overwhelming sense of bleakness in the game and Remedy really lays into fleshing the environments out through the use of lighting.  There a nice variety of locales to explore in Alan Wake too which really helps flesh Bright Falls out as a character in itself.  Sound design deserves to be praised with this game too, as I feel the use of audio made a lot of key moments stand out all on their own.  There was nothing more chilling than walking through the dark woods of Bright Falls and feeling the terrifying howl of the Dark Presence whirling around you.  It really helps give the game that extra stroke of quality to really help leave an impression.

While I feel Alan Wake is showing its age with regards to its control scheme, I struggle to think of anything else that even remotely lets this game down after the fact.  I think Remedy Entertainment showcased with sheer confidence in Alan Wake why they are a developer worthy of recognition.  Their unique approach to game design is showcased at every turn in this game. They never let their limitations shine brighter than their capabilities and you feel that when playing Alan Wake.  I would recommend anyone to give the game a try, even if its unconventional approach isn’t for you, you at least need to try and experience everything this game has to offer.