Game Review: Alan Wake Remastered (2021)
“Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear…” this quote from Stephen King opens Remedy Entertainment’s classic, Alan Wake, and in this sentiment is the thematic entirety of the story that follows: Wake’s story is a nightmare in which the logic that governs his everyday life is peeling apart, and the more explanation he uncovers, the more that gives way to fear. The game embraces narrative uncertainty, muddling the facts and smearing the lens of perception the deeper into it you delve.
When originally released in 2010, nothing like Alan Wake had been seen in gaming: a moody, surrealist, decidedly original horror story that stood on the shoulders of television shows like Twin Peaks and Lost while embracing their more cerebral narrative elements. Though commercially unremarkable and decidedly against the trends of the time, Alan Wake garnered a cult following in the decade that followed, and these fans were rewarded with a 2021 remaster that shined up the visuals and gave another generation a chance to experience the dreadful, unforgettable world of the game.
“It’s not a lake: it’s an ocean”
Being a weird person who justifies their continued interest in video games, I, of course, played Alan Wake during its original run, and on the heels of the absolutely peerless experience that is Alan Wake 2, decided it was worth my time to pick it up this remaster. Eight hours later, I’m glad to say that old magic is still here, and in some ways the distinctness and creativity that went into the original title feel even more appreciable today.
The story begins simply enough: popular writer Alan Wake and his wife, Alice, vacation in a remote town of Bright Falls, situated somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Alan has been struggling to write, partying too much, and while they seem to have a solid relationship on the surface, it’s clear there are some persistent tensions between him and his spouse. Soon, Alice disappears into the lake outside of their cabin, and Wake finds himself at the scene of a car crash, missing more a week's worth of time from the moment he watched her go beneath the waters. From here, Alan’s reality seems to break from his memories: the cabin they were renting purportedly sunk into the lake back in 1970, and there’s precious little material evidence to support his story. Suddenly, Alan’s perception of the world is not aligning with that of the police, his agent, or the citizens of Bright Falls, and he is the primary suspect in his wife’s disappearance. When he receives a call from the presumed kidnapper, he has no choice but to meet their demands, and swap his manuscript-in-progress for Alice’s safety at a remote location.
“A drowning man will clutch at a straw”
Being a remastered game from 2010, one might expect the gameplay to feel a bit stale, but I found a lot to love about this setup, which was simple but still interesting. Sure, the controls are a little weird at first, with no lock-on and a camera-yanking dodge based on timing rather than position, but before long I actually found these quirks appreciable for both their uniqueness and the experience they create for the player. If you’re unfamiliar, the shadowy “Taken” enemies of Alan Wake are human spirits shrouded in darkness, and Alan has to burn away their protective shields with a flashlight before they can be harmed by traditional weapons. The flashlight-firearm weapon combo encourages players to balance conservation of resources with urgency of encounter. In some regards, combat is more elegant here than in the sequel, as you can hold your flashlight on a target passively, eventually breaking its shield, or use resources (batteries) to accelerate the process. This feels much more conscious and strategic than AW2, where you always have to expend resources to break an enemy’s protection in any case. It may be less complex, but it feels novel here, and arguably better.
Alan Wake’s enemy variety and encounter design aren’t among the game’s strengths, and while I’d still describe them as adequate for a narrative-driven game like this, a bit more texture in this area would not have gone unappreciated. This is a title primarily concerned about its theme and story, the combat and gameplay mechanics as a whole are adequate, if unexceptional. By modern standards, Alan Wake is not especially challenging. This may be because consoles were the dominant gaming platform of the time and controllers weren’t yet particularly sophisticated when it came to navigating 3D environments. Also, this game was created in the pre-FromSoft boom, when there was a consensus opinion among developers that players would be turned off by anything that was too challenging. While there can be moments of frustration, with Wake feeling like he’s made of glass, a generous and easy-to-master dodge system, as well as plentiful ammunition and resources, means this should be a surmountable challenge for even very casual gamers.
There is some curious level design, as many of the outdoor areas include vast tracts of empty space (likely a result of the game being originally developed as an open world game), seemingly serving no purpose other than to create a sense of scale. I’m not necessarily criticizing this, but it feels odd in 2025, when every space in a game typically has a meaningful purpose in constructing gameplay. Players may need to break the habit of searching every corner open to them, or at least make peace with the idea that these ventures won’t always be rewarding, as I rarely found anything exciting in my sojourns away from the critical path. There are also comically unrealistic stretches where Alan uses a vehicle to navigate the over-large levels, flashing headlights as weapons and running down Taken willy-nilly. While crunchy and slightly absurd, these don’t hurt the game overall, and serve as a fun reminder that games can be serious without taking themselves seriously all the time.
“The dread lingers at the edge of perception”
Alan Wake wields the same pervasive dread as its sequel—that sense that even if enemies aren’t especially challenging, you’d rather not encounter them. The Taken feel discordant, discomforting, and oddly tragic, these lost souls that slipped into the darkness that emanates from Cauldron Lake. Alan Wake is a game that hinges entirely on atmosphere, and the Taken go a long way to making it as successful as it is.
It’s hard to reckon precisely from this distant vantage of 2025, but Alan Wake may well have been the first horror game to introduce a cycle of high-intensity chapters followed by periods of reprieve where exploration of the backstory take center stage. The game progresses through several successive days with Alan working to unspool the broader mystery by day and fighting his way through nightmares at night. Even now, it comes across as incredibly measured and considered, like the plotting of a novel rather than a video game. I was also deeply impressed with how much of the foundation for Alan Wake 2 was laid here more than a decade earlier.
The one small downside to this game is the final chapters tend to be loaded with tedious encounters in which multiple enemies spawn in close proximity to Alan, turning it into an impromptu gangbang if you aren’t super aware (typically awareness comes by having died to the encounter multiple times). It's not especially challenging, but it is the type of encounter that relies on foresight rather than reaction. Full disclosure: I'm writing this bit while letting my character slowly regenerate during the exceedingly late-game bridge sequence.
Final Thoughts: “In a horror story the victim keeps asking why, but there can be no explanation and there shouldn't be one.”
Anyone who reads this site regularly, you know that I have conflicting feelings over covering video games. It always draws strange looks, occasionally outright derision, when I mention that this format is in-scope for my criticism, but I’ll reiterate for perhaps the thousandth time that I strongly believe there is a unique and completely unreplaceable experience one can have experiencing a scary story through this medium.
More than perhaps any other series, I think there is intellectual merit to considering Alan Wake as a piece of art rather than a video game. It strikes a distinct and well-articulated thesis, and is something that augments the space occupied by properties readily comparable in theme and execution. It stands as a peer—not a derivative or homage—among legendary horror and horror-adjacent properties like Twin Peaks, Lost, Dark, or the literature of Stephen King—fictional entities which are often referenced and beloved, but rarely successfully iterated upon, thematically speaking. Alan Wake somehow manages to pay the appropriate respect to what inspired it while also showing an equally affecting contribution to the codex of strange fiction.
Both Alan Wake and its sequel are masterworks of their respective eras in the world of video games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither has been a commercial success, a perhaps tragic parallel between the game and other works of art that wield titanic influence in their respective spheres despite being experienced by relatively few people.
Score: 9.0
Strengths
Masterful storytelling, even fifteen years after its release
Unique gameplay that is simple yet fun, well-suited to the game in which it appears
Accessible and easy without being boring
Weaknesses
Players accustomed to more bells and whistles may not feel drawn in
Some encounter design hasn’t aged well
Runs 7-8 hours, but probably should have been a bit shorter
You can purchase Alan Wake: Remastered on Epic Games, Playstation, Nintendo, or Xbox.
You might also like: Lost, Stephen King, Twin Peaks, Shutter Island
