Developer : Remedy Entertainment
Release date : October, 2021
Synopsis :
Alan Wake (voiced by Matthew Porretta) is a bestselling crime fiction author suffering from a two-year stretch of writer’s block. He and his wife Alice travel to the small mountain town of Bright Falls, Washington for a short vacation on the advice of Alice and Alan’s friend and agent Barry Wheeler. Before their arrival, Alan has a nightmare about shadowy figures who try to kill him, before an ethereal figure interrupts the dream and teaches him how to utilize the light to fend off the shadows.
Upon arrival in Bright Falls, Alan goes to retrieve the keys and map to their rented cabin from Carl Stucky, the cabin’s landlord, but encounters a mysterious old woman, who tells him that Stucky had fallen ill and she was entrusted to give Alan the keys. The woman directs Alan and Alice to a cabin on an island in the middle of Cauldron Lake, a volcanic crater lake. As they unpack, Alice reveals to Alan that the real purpose of their trip is to help break his writer’s block by arranging for him to see a famous Bright Falls psychologist named Dr. Emil Hartman and leaving a typewriter in one of the cabin’s rooms for him to work on his next book. Alan is infuriated and storms out of the cabin, but rushes back when he hears Alice crying for help. Alan returns to the cabin just as Alice is being dragged into the lake’s waters by a mysterious force. Alan dives into the water after her, blacking out as he submerges.
Alan regains consciousness a week later, apparently having driven his car off the road, but with no memory of how he got there. He attempts to reach a nearby gas station, but his progress is hampered by murderous, shadowy figures resembling those in his dream. While fighting the shadows with light, Alan repeatedly encounters an ethereal figure in a diving suit similar to the one from his dream, which leaves behind pages of a manuscript entitled Departure, ostensibly written by Alan, which he has no memory of writing. Alan soon discovers that the events of the manuscript are coming true, and that the shadowy figures, or “Taken,” are townsfolk possessed by a dark force. After killing a possessed Carl Stucky and reaching the gas station, Alan tries to alert Sheriff Sarah Breaker of his wife’s disappearance, but Sarah states that there has been no island or cabin in Cauldron Lake for years after it sank following a volcanic eruption years prior. Alan is taken to the police station, and Barry arrives in Bright Falls in search of him.
Alan receives a call from a man purporting to be Alice’s kidnapper, demanding the pages of Departure in exchange for her. Meeting at a nearby national park, Alan witnesses the kidnapper at the mercy of the mysterious old woman, confessing that he never actually had Alice. Alan and the kidnapper are then attacked by a dark tornado, which hurls Alan into Cauldron Lake. He awakens in the lodge overlooking Cauldron Lake under the care of Hartman, who claims that Alan is suffering a psychotic break, with the supernatural phenomena being fabrications of his imagination. Alan attempts to escape the lodge as the shadowy force starts to attack it, learning in the process that the fake kidnapper was employed by Hartman to lure Alan to him. Hartman tries to stop Alan from escaping, and gives the impression that he is aware of the supernatural events surrounding the lake. Barry helps Alan to escape the lodge before the shadow subsumes it and all those inside.
Alan and Barry gradually begin to learn the truth about Cauldron Lake from the other townsfolk. An entity known as the Dark Presence (taking the form of the old woman, Barbara Jagger) is trapped within the lake, attempting to escape by using the lake’s power to turn fiction into reality. It had previously tried this with a poet named Thomas Zane – the figure in the diving suit – but Zane was able to resist its will and used his writings to cause the volcanic eruption that sank the island, stranding himself within the lake. The Dark Presence has grown strong enough to start to influence the townspeople and create the forces that have pursued Alan. That night, as Alan and Barry take shelter, they get drunk on moonshine, and Alan starts to recall memories of being forced to write Departure during the prior week, realizing that the Dark Presence is now trying to use his writings to escape, and is holding Alice within the lake in order to coerce him.
Alan and Barry are arrested by an FBI agent, but the Taken assault the police station and drag the agent away. Sarah, now convinced of the Dark Presence’s existence, helps Alan and Barry reach Cynthia Weaver, a hermit who knew Thomas Zane and prepared countermeasures for the Dark Presence’s return. She leads them to the “Well-Lit Room,” containing a light switch known as the Clicker, which, through the power of Alan’s writings, possesses the narrative ability to destroy the Dark Presence. Alan returns to Cauldron Lake alone and dives in, finding himself in a surreal alternate dimension known as the Dark Place, where thoughts and ideas become reality. Alan encounters Jagger and destroys her with the Clicker; realizing he must maintain balance in the story, Alan completes Departure by freeing Alice, but strands himself in the Dark Place in the process. Finishing Departure, Alan writes the final line – “It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.”
Source : Wikipedia
