Alan Wake 2’s biggest twist has huge implications for future Remedy games
02.11.2023 - 17:35
/ polygon.com
/ Saga Anderson
/ Alan Wake
/ Alex Casey
Alan Wake 2, the long-awaited sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 cult action-horror game, was released last week and has already inspired an effusive reception.
Picking up 13 in-game years after the original, the survival-horror game follows the parallel journeys of FBI agent Saga Anderson and writer Alan Wake as they fend off a slew of horrors that blur the line between reality and fiction. Aside from continuing the story that first began in 2010’s Alan Wake, Alan Wake 2 is also the latest installment in the Remedy Connected Universe: a shared continuity of stories that includes both Alan Wake games and the 2019 supernatural action game Control.
Alan Wake 2 feels as much like a sequel to Control as it does to the original Alan Wake, with various references and cameos that call back to the adventures of the Oldest House and Jesse Faden’s battle against the preternatural entity known as the Hiss. Because of this connection, several of the biggest twists and turns in Alan Wake 2 not only foreshadow the future struggles of Alan and Saga, but hint at the increased stakes and scope of Control 2 as well. Even more interesting is that the (arguably) most consequential twist in Alan Wake 2 was already foreshadowed all the way back in Control.
[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for Alan Wake 2 and Control.]
Alan Wake 2 opens with FBI profiler Saga Anderson and her partner, Alex Casey, en route to the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, Washington, in order to investigate the latest in a series of mysterious disappearances and murders seemingly linked to a criminal organization known as the Cult of the Tree. Shortly after arriving, Anderson and Casey stumble upon a series of manuscript pages that eerily predict the future, and also appear to have been written by Alan Wake, who disappeared in the proximity of Cauldron Lake over a decade prior. (Time in the Remedy Connected Universe progresses simultaneously with the real world.)
Saga’s investigation leads her to Watery, a fishing town neighboring Bright Falls that’s home to both a coffee-themed amusement park and a trailer park. While tracking down the cult’s last known whereabouts, Saga comes across pages of the manuscript that suggest that both she and her partner have been written into a horror story that is slowly coming to life.
Upon arriving at the Lighthouse trailer park, Saga realizes the terrible truth: The horror story whose manuscript pages she has been collecting are in fact gradually warping reality itself. Some effects: the apparent death of her daughter Logan; her divorce from her husband; and her role as the protagonist in this nightmarish story. With no other recourse, Saga makes it her mission to find the Clicker — a so-called “Object of Power”