In the small town of Bright Falls, writer Alan Wake searches for his lost wife. As darkness descends on the town, Alan finds pages of a horror story that he supposedly wrote, and the story is coming true. To find his wife and save the town from darkness, Alan must play the role of the protagonist in his own thriller and change the ending before all is lost. Celebrating a 10 year anniversary, the action-horror “Alan Wake” is remastered for new generations.
While still needing improvements in some areas, “Alan Wake Remastered” proves to still be a great thriller even after all these years.
Alan finds various manuscript pages littered around the town and surrounding areas which detail the events unfolding as they happen. These provide clues as to his missing wife’s whereabouts, as well as the true nature of the darkness taking hold of the town. Collecting these manuscript pages helps to provide useful information on the foes that I encountered. The manuscripts also give more perspective on various characters I interacted with, and helped to put pieces of the puzzle together.
A dark presence has descended on Bright Falls, twisting the fabric of reality and taking control over the population. Those controlled by the darkness are called the Taken, and serve as the primary antagonistic forces alongside the darkness. Alan is not helpless in his plight however, with the aid of a mysterious figure in a diving suit made of light, he is provided with a varied arsenal. Combat takes two steps — burning away the darkness with light and unleashing firepower with your weapons. The latter is more typical of the action shooter genre, with pistols, shotguns and rifles at your disposal. However, light plays an important role in dispatching the Taken.
Invincible to all forms of damage, the Taken need to be exposed to a light source before they become vulnerable. This takes place mainly with the use of a flashlight, which can be upgraded to various types of torches. The environment also offers solutions, with generators, street lights, car headlights and more than can be used to light the way. Having this extra layer of combat helps the game have a unique flavor when it comes to the action-thriller genre.
In terms of the remaster, the game looks good in some areas, but still basic in others. I think the developers did an excellent job working on the character models, especially their faces. Fans of the series will immediately notice the work done on Alan himself, with his model looking much more like his real voice actor. While it took some getting used to, I found myself liking this new version of him more. Cutscenes still look a bit gritty at times, but during normal gameplay the world looks amazing. Lighting and shadows have also been updated, making for much more interesting dynamics in the environment. The remaster also boosts the performance of the game, keeping steady around 60 frames per second for a much smoother viewing experience.
Unfortunately, there were some bugs that I experienced during my playthrough. The game would randomly crash without warning multiple times, and this issue was present all the way through the game. Graphical glitches were also present, with textures missing in some places, or trees popping in and out of existence. Sometimes during cutscenes as well, the audio wouldn’t be synced up with the events taking place on screen. The worst glitch I encountered was near the beginning of the game, when I loaded into the Cauldron Lake area for the first time. Almost all of the environment was missing, and I was essentially floating on nothing. A simple restart fixed the issue, but it definitely took me out of the experience.
The mystery of Bright Falls and the writer trapped in darkness is an interesting one to get wrapped up in. Even if there are some flaws in the execution, the gameplay still holds up to this day. While not a complete overhaul, “Alan Wake Remastered” proves to be a game worth playing all these years later, whether for the first time or as a returning fan.
