Alan Wake

Alan Wake
Developer(s)	Remedy Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date(s)	Spring 2010
Genre(s)	Action (Psychological thriller)
Mode(s)	Single-player
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
Distribution

Alan Wake is a video game being developed by Remedy Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the Max Payne games. Alan Wake is billed as a "psychological action thriller" and is due for release on Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows platforms in Spring 2010.

The character Alan Wake's appearance is modeled after Ilkka Villi, a Finnish professional actor and writer.

Plot

Alan Wake, a bestselling writer, hasn't managed to write anything in over two years. Now his wife, Alice, brings him to the idyllic small town of Bright Falls to recover his creative flow. But when she vanishes without a trace, Wake finds himself trapped in a nightmare. Word by word, his latest work, a thriller he can't even remember writing, is coming true before his eyes. He somehow knows it's his story without any memory of writing it.

A message posted by ADM, the Community Manager on the Remedy community forums, details some aspects of the game's story.

The message, as it appears on the forums: "The amount of pages keeps growing each night. There are also new edits on the old pages. They keep getting more aggressive. The story is rewriting itself. The protagonist is now my namesake, and his wife is called Alice. The most worrying aspect: the genre seems to be shifting. It's turning into a horror story. I can no longer be certain whether the hero can succeed or even survive. Apart for the jumbled fragments of bad dreams and an oppressive feeling, I can remember nothing of the process when I wake up. But this morning, a breakthrough! When I came to my senses, I could smell her perfume on my shirt. I am close. I know it. I must push on.

- Alan Wake"

Another two messages were posted on the Alan Wake forums. They read as follows.

"Rusty's screams were still ringing in my ears. The tree stump the grove got its name from looked like a severed leg of a monsterous bird. I prayed that the gun would make a difference. Every time I moved the flashlight, I was afraid of the horrors it might reveal. Suddenly a ragged arrow gloved in the light. I followed it.

- Alan Wake".

"I became increasingly afraid to go to sleep. I was convinced that I would wake up changed, darkness having seeped in through the cracks in the floor, crawled up to my bed, and made its way inside, through a nostril or an ear.

I barricaded the door of the cabin. I kept the lights on at all times. I taped a note on the door (I had forgotten so many things already): 'Don't go out.'

-Alan Wake"

Taken from an article on IGN.

Gameplay

The dark forces (enemies) coming to 'take care of' Alan Wake are vulnerable to light. So the most useful weapon of all is actually the flashlight. You will be able to place booby traps which will illuminate when executed, etc. Light will weaken or hurt Wake's enemies, and creatively taking advantage of any and all light sources within Alan Wake's grim world is touted to be one of the more interesting aspects of play.

A cinematic trailer for the game was shown on 15 October 2008, just before the Max Payne film premiere.

Like Max Payne before it, the title Alan Wake is a play on words. Combining the main character's first initial with his last name forms "A. Wake," or "Awake".

Remedy Entertainment also promised a free-roam 3-dimensional city, similar to the Grand Theft Auto series.

""The basic idea with the free-roaming world is that we give the player goals, and then the player can go about achieving those goals in the way he chooses. Alan Wake is more tightly character-driven and story-oriented, meaning that the player’s goals and missions are closely focused around Alan Wake and his story. Also, the setting, the tone and the game being an action thriller all set it clearly apart from the GTA games." – Sam Lake"

—{{{2}}}

""Intense cinematic action is something that we love to do, and Alan Wake features tense combat gameplay as well, but all things considered the game has a lot more emphasis on adventure and exploration than what Max Payne did. Driving is an integral part of the game". - Petri Järvilehto"

—{{{2}}}

""There will be no multiplayer in this game. We'd much rather give the players a great single-player game, than a mediocre single and multiplayer game." -Petri Järvilehto"

—{{{2}}}

Taken from Alan Wake FAQ.

Release date

On June 1st, 2009, at Microsoft's E3 press conference, Sam Lake presented a new Alan Wake trailer and gameplay movie. He then revealed the release timeframe as Spring 2010.

See also

• List of Games for Windows titles
• List of games with DirectX 10 support

External links

• Official Homepage
• Limited Edition @ Amazon
• Regular Edition @ Amazon

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