Alan Wake Remastered (2021) — A Story Based Review

A six episode mini-series padded out with gun fights.

I initially played this with my father, and this was his first video game so a lot of my opinions arise from the frustration of guiding a non-gamer through what I thought would be a fairly easy game to play. But he did finish it and gave it a 7/10.

But, I’m a gamer. I know how to use a controller without looking down at the buttons and I know how to check the minimap/compass to find the way forth (no flame towards my Dad). For reference, we played this on the PS5.

I should start with my Dad’s rating. He enjoyed the challenge and the art. After explaining the story, since he was too occupied with handling the controller to read the story, he liked the concept of it and wished he had more time in between battles to absorb the story. Yet, he did not like the jankiness of the controls, how the flashlight would not stay centered if Alan was pushed or tripped over something. Nor did he like how repetitive the battles became as he was trying his best to get to the next checkpoint. Gamers know how story-based games work, go from checkpoint to checkpoint to receive narration and cutscenes; or sometimes the story would be told to you as you were playing. But as a new gamer, the voices of the characters were quick to be drowned out by the gunfire of a hectic player like my Dad.

And now me. Alan Wake was on my list to play ever since it was removed from the Steam store. Remedy Entertainment could not hold the creative licenses for the music and had to take it off the storefront. I missed my chance back then but when I received a copy from the PS Store via the Plus subscription, I knew I would play this at some point. Before I got to play Alan Wake, I stumbled into playing Control (2019). That was genuinely an accidental game to play and yet it was one I actually finished completely through and even did the AWE DLC which connects back to Alan Wake. This was a surprise to me because I wasn’t expecting to actually play Control. I did not know anything about Control but once I started playing the game I was taken away by the visuals, the graphics, and the creative gameplay. This gave me a good hint into what Alan Wake was going to be like. Something supernatural, quirky, and psychological; and very narrative driven. The style is definitely the sauce.

Alan Wake though is a precursor to Control. To be clear, the stories are not connected in any way. It’s just that the world of Control is also the world of Alan Wake. And shows that Alan Wake was the first run of this storytelling style by Remedy Entertainment because Control is a lot more imaginative in its world. Alan Wake, on the other hand, is somewhat realistic sans the element of Darkness in the game. It gives us a good lead-in to the supernatural elements of the world that these games take place in. But Alan Wake still has a tight grip on reality. In all honesty, Alan Wake is like playing an episode of Twin Peaks (1990) and that’s 100% done on purpose. The town, the atmosphere, and the fact that we’re in Washington is all a very deliberate homage to David Lynch’s world; which I love.

The world is good, so moving on we get to the characters. I honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about these people. Alan is headstrong, stubborn, and ignorant. There a ton of pieces here and there that make Alan look like a miserable person to be around, and by the end of the game I was genuinely questioning if he was even a good husband too. The gameplay matches him though, in that he’s a writer not a fighter. He can barely run, he can’t handle drops of a certain height, and his aim is quite poor. All of this makes the game a little difficult to play, but not in a good way. I found his control of a flashlight to be very annoying especially since that was critical to finding the enemies. The fact that you can’t run for more than a few seconds also padded up the level with needless time.

Our other primary characters are Alice Wake, Barry Wheeler, and Susan Breaker. They show up here and there and try to convey the story through different perspectives. Alice is wholly uninteresting. Both in that she’s not really in the game and that when she is she’s not made out to be very interesting. I finished the game wondering if these two should even be married. Barry on the other hand was a fun sidekick. He has that stereotypical New York City accent and is quick to jokes. He brings a little brevity to a game that is nearly completely in the dark. And then we have Susan, the sheriff. Much like Twin Peak’s Harry S. Truman, Susan brings Alan the perspective of the town. There’s a very lengthy level where she takes you around town fighting all the enemies to help Alan get to the next objective, and it shows how much she knows about the town and how much there is in this town too. There are other characters too, but most don’t exist for more than one chapter, like Emil Hartman. Unfortunately this game is rather lonely as a result. Alan barely talks to anyone and goes on his journey alone until Chapter 5, out of six.

And when you combine the gameplay being very finnicky, you are left with an experience that is riddled with minor grievances. Many of my deaths in the game were because Alan wouldn’t aim properly, wouldn’t switch weapons fast enough, wouldn’t reload, or sometimes he would toss a flare when I selected a flashbang. His primary method of aiming is with his flashlight, and in certain scenarios it can be hard to see where the flashlight is pointing at. Additionally, holding the flashlight down to boost it also takes up its charge, even if this makes the light easier to see and easier to aim with. So the tradeoff is batteries or ammo every time. There’s a sense of item conservation that is required here, like in the Resident Evil franchise. You can totally expend your supplies before you reach the next ammo drop, thus forcing Alan to run for his life. But there are also a significant amount of times where Alan will drop his resources himself, forcing you to locate ammo, guns, or flashlights all over again when the cutscene ends again. This, and many other moments, create artificial difficulty. It’s not that the game is hard, but that it forces it to be difficult by needless taking things from you. There are also definitely multiple combat areas that are made to overwhelm you for no other reason than to make you do something as you pass the area.

And my biggest gripe is the story. Or the lack of it. Like I mentioned, this game is a six episode mini-series. It’s directly and shot like one. But all scenes of the show are cut by way too many gunfights that pad up the runtime to over nine hours, or 16 for my Dad. I don’t mind that this is a short game, I’ve played many games that are short but make use of that time well. I’ve also played games that are explicitly narrative driven and pay more attention to giving the player a good show. But Alan Wake tries to be both and messes up the formula. The story of the game is quite basic, and the depth is shallow. When you write out the whole story, it only takes a few pages to complete and then you realize not much actually happened. The supernatural concepts aren’t very interesting and the writer vs the story conflict they try to pose comes off as noise that falls behind the action, hence why my Dad didn’t even notice the story until I pointed it out for him.

Look, I can understand how this game became a cult classic. It’s not impossible for someone to have a good time here. But it’s plainly not very deep, unlike Cauldron Lake in the game. But it’s also not hard to see how Remedy Entertainment would be justified in creating a sequel to this game. And hence, I look forward to Alan Wake II (2023), where the graphics, the creative expression, and hopefully the story, all get a huge upgrade.

6/10