Alan Wake is the cornerstone upon which Treatment Leisure’s magnum opus rests. This magnum opus is, nevertheless, not any particular sport, however their interrelationship, ensuing within the creation of the Treatment Linked Universe. And, although Management established RCU in concrete phrases, understanding the way it all started is essential.

Naturally, all of it started with Alan Wake correct. As Treatment’s Sam Lake will attest, neither Quantum Break nor Max Payne are part of the official RCU, and they’ll subsequently be left apart for the needs of recapping and explaining the total story of Alan Wake. We are going to, nevertheless, want to try Management and American Nightmare to make sense of what’s been happening, and the way it all units the stage for Alan Wake 2.

Oh, earlier than we start, it could be good to set the stage correctly: Twin Peaks is among the core inspirations for Treatment’s Alan Wake and, as such, the Treatment-verse as a complete. Anticipate Lynchian logic right here and there, then, with a touch of SCP slathered on prime. Do anticipate loads of spoilers under, for the earlier Alan Wake video games and Management.

Full recap and clarification of what occurs in Alan Wake

As one may anticipate from a chunk of media impressed by Twin Peaks, there are layers upon layers of narrative growth current in Alan Wake, and there’s no possible method for us to cowl all of them in a smart method. The story, because it have been, begins with Alan himself and his spouse, Alice, getting into the Americana-core city of Shiny Falls, Washington for a trip. They lease out a small, lonely cabin on the Cauldron Lake, and intend to relaxation up for a short while.

Nonetheless, whereas unpacking, Alice reveals to Alan that she has an ulterior motive for going to Shiny Falls, particularly. As Alan had been battling extreme author’s block for years on the time, Alice labored out a plan to get him to satisfy Dr. Emil Hartman, a well-known psychologist. Revealing this twist to Alan doesn’t go based on plan, nevertheless, and the pair get into an enormous combat that wraps up with Alice disappearing into the lake.

Cauldron Lake isn’t any extraordinary physique of water, as Wake slowly realizes. As an alternative, it’s one thing that Management would later outline as a threshold: a connection between Earth and another paranatural location. Cauldron Lake, particularly, connects to the Darkish Place, an odd and malleable airplane of existence that homes the aptly named Darkish Presence, the primary antagonist of Alan Wake. Thus begins the story!

Departure

The core of Alan Wake‘s gameplay loop is centred across the titular character’s makes an attempt at determining what on earth is occurring in Shiny Falls, who kidnapped Alice, and find out how to save her. The reveals are dished out in a little bit of a meandering method, in typical Lynchian vogue, however the very gist of the story is less complicated than it appears at a look.

Mainly, the Darkish Presence wants a proficient and prolific artist to put in writing it into existence on Earth, and Cauldron Lake is a strong threshold the place inventive works may be became actuality. Dr. Hartman, particularly, has been angling for artists like Alan Wake to return to Shiny Falls, in order that he might use them as vessels for the Darkish Presence, and that’s exactly what occurs right here.

Although the Darkish Presence solely has a restricted quantity of energy on Earth initially of the sport, it’s a formidable paranatural power that may have an effect on residing beings by an enormous margin. The people and animals that try and seize or kill Alan within the sport, for instance, are Taken by the Darkish Presence to do its bidding. But, if it might leverage the writings of Alan Wake at Cauldron Lake, the Darkish Presence would change into way more “actual” on Earth, giving it extra energy.

Initiation

It doesn’t take lengthy for Alan to return throughout his agent, Barry, and to recruit him as he appears for Alice. All method of hell breaks unfastened alongside the best way, together with a combat with a Darkness-possessed mammoth skeleton, just for Hartman to ultimately lure Wake and attempt to gaslight him into considering he’s merely having a psychological breakdown attributable to Alice’s drowning.

Fortunately, Barry helps Alan escape from Hartman’s psychiatric hospital, and the pair ultimately find yourself getting drunk on moonshine distilled from Cauldron Lake water. This, in flip, provides Alan the power to recollect writing the mysterious Departure manuscript, the pages of which he had been gathering all through the story. Aping the meta-myth of the Hero’s Journey, Wake’s Departure is, as soon as accomplished, going to permit the Darkish Presence to pour onto Earth and do no matter it needs, which is clearly not a very good factor.

Whereas Wake couldn’t put a cease to the insanity, he figured that there could be a method for him to avoid wasting Alice at the very least. To take action, he dives into Cauldron Lake to enter the Darkish Place, and completes Departure. Doing so meant that Alice can be free to go away, however Wake needed to keep and navigate the Darkish Place all on his personal. The principle story’s narrative wraps up with the phrases: “It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.”

Return

Alan Wake obtained two further “episodes” to proceed its primary narrative. Titled ‘The Sign’ and ‘The Author,’ they’re not outright essential for our understanding of the Remedyverse lore, however they provide helpful context and cope with Wake’s adventures within the Darkish Place.

The implications posed by these two tales are quite a few, however a very powerful of all of them comes ultimately, after Wake had already battled it out together with his personal frenzied thoughts. Wake, now having grown accustomed to the logic of the Darkish Place, begins writing the ultimate third of the meta-myth, Return, which units the stage for Alan Wake 2 method earlier than American Nightmare and Management have been even introduced.

One notable tidbit of lore right here is that the artists affected by Darkish Presence can not write no matter they need into being. Some sense of stability have to be maintained, which is why Alan needed to keep behind within the Darkish Place, to ensure that Alice to flee.

The occasions of American Nightmare

Whereas there’s some dialogue about whether or not American Nightmare is canon, because it wasn’t included within the remaster of Alan Wake, every thing factors to it being fairly essential for Remedyverse as a complete. Firstly, it options Mr. Scratch, the evil doppelganger of Alan Wake who’d go on to hang-out Alice Wake afterward. Secondly, its ending poses the implication that Wake can not make something and every thing into actuality simply by advantage of writing it down from the Darkish Place, and may as an alternative merely have the ability to nudge sure occasions into actuality.

Since Wake wrote the occasions of the American Nightmare as in the event that they have been an episode of an in-universe TV present, they solely ever occurred within the Darkish Place, reasonably than on Earth. He by no means did reunite with Alice, and he didn’t take down Mr. Scratch, both. As an alternative, the occasions performed out as a nightmare that Wake’s buddy, Barry, awoke screaming from.

The occasions of Management

Lastly, there’s Management. Extra so than some other Treatment Leisure sport, Management supplied a wealth of context as to what’s really been happening within the background. Thresholds, Locations of Energy, Objects of Energy, all of Alan Wake makes good sense when thought of from the attitude supplied by Management. The truth is, lots of the anomalies that the protagonist, Jesse Faden, offers with over the course of Management are extraordinarily just like what Wake has been coping with all alongside, besides from a barely extra scientific perspective.

After Wake disappears into Cauldron Lake and the Darkish Place, Dr. Hartman decides to comply with him, solely to right away get overtaken by the Darkish Presence. This ultimately led the Federal Bureau of Management to research and seize the contaminated, mutated Hartman, and take him again to the Oldest Home. The bit that complicates issues is that, through the occasions of Management, Hartman obtained infested by the Hiss as properly, stacking one paranatural meme/parasite on prime of one other. Jesse, after all, kills Hartman ultimately, however the ending of the AWE enlargement pack suggests {that a} new Altered World Occasion will likely be happening in Shiny Falls – a number of years sooner or later.

As each Alan Wake and the standalone American Nightmare DLC clarify Wake can not outright change the actual world, however may solely have the ability to piece occasions collectively in a considerably fascinating method, it’s unlikely that Wake wrote the whole thing of Management into existence from scratch. As an alternative, the choice concept is that Wake set the stage for the Hiss, the FBC, and Jesse herself to cross paths, in order to hopefully flip Jesse into the saviour that Wake must lastly escape from the Darkish Place.

Will Jesse Faden seem in Alan Wake 2? We don’t know but, however Entity A-001 certain appears to be making itself at dwelling in Shiny Falls.