Alan Wake Revisited

Alan Wake is an intense psychological horror game done in the style of an episodic series that follows a grieving man that's attempting to write a book and find out clues about his wife's disappearance. It's one of the most iconic games to release on Xbox 360 in 2010 with a PC release some time after and it was also made available on Xbox One through Xbox Backwards Compatibility. Shown in the third person you play as Alan Wake within the small town of Bright Falls. Things are not what they seem however as the darkness begins to take over the town with the citizens being at a loss of what to do. Moving through many terrifying locations of this old town Wake attempts to fight the darkness while gathering clues as to what's happening around him.

The Dark Ones become a growing problem over the course of the narrative expanding in size and power. They come in a variety of forms and the combat is based around taking out these creatures. They can mainly only be damaged by light and then followed by a weapon to finish, it's a unique combination of combat. This requires you to be creative with various light tools and to use anything that can brighten the world to your advantage. It wasn't a difficult game focusing on the cinematic beauty of the story, but there were some spots that brought a fair challenge. This provided players with a story that everyone could experience while still having enough gameplay to not just be cinematics.


The game was purely a story based one having a fairly lengthy campaign and it will always be fondly remembered for providing such a solid tale. The elements of a psychological thriller were perfectly displayed and few games have been able to emulate that feeling very well. The story was followed up with two DLC expansions which grew the main game and continued the story building towards some very interesting possible events. The game also was given a spin-off called "American Nightmare" which was an arcade game that carried the same format for a standalone episode that somewhat filtered into the core story.

Alan Wake is a perfect game that holds up incredibly well and is one that everyone should experience. It featured a strong narrative backed by impressive gameplay and the use of the episodic style worked very well for it. This is definitely one of those games that will always stand out with its impressive design that few games have been able to pull off correctly. The characters were interesting, the setting was damn creepy with the right amount of chill and you just want to play it all the way through.

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