History YMMV / AlanWake

** Also in ''American Nightmare'', interacting with the payphone outside of the motel during Act 3 will treat the player to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWPjl1FzV2s "The Deer Story"]], as it's listed in the credits, where Creator/MatthewPorretta tells a story about a time when he went on an early morning run and saw a deer that had disemboweled itself on a spiky fence. The story is obviously not dialogue written for the game, and Porretta is clearly just telling a story from his own personal life as himself and not as Alan, giving the overall impression that he was just chatting between takes, this haunting story happened to be recorded in the process, and the writers liked it and decided to insert it into the game, even though the overall vibe would be better suited for either of the two mainline ''Alan Wake'' games than this one. The story goes completely without comment in the game.

** Also in ''American Nightmare'', interacting with the payphone outside of the motel during Act 3 will treat the player to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWPjl1FzV2s "The Deer Story"]], as it's listed in the credits, where Creator/MatthewPorretta tells a story about a time when he went on an early morning run and saw a deer that had disemboweled itself on a spiky fence, while he happened to be listening to ''Theatre/{{Tosca}}'', specifically the duet where Tosca murders Scarpia. The story is obviously not dialogue written for the game, and Porretta is clearly just telling a story from his own personal life as himself and not as Alan, giving the overall impression that he was just chatting between takes, this haunting story happened to be recorded in the process, and the writers liked it and decided to insert it into the game, even though the overall vibe would be better suited for either of the two mainline ''Alan Wake'' games than this one. In-game, Alan doesn't have any comments or responses to the story at all.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: In ''American Nightmare'', during your final trip to the observatory, you fight a horde of Taken while "[[https://youtu.be/b6RKKCQt82Y?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- Balance Slays the Demon]]" plays seemingly from nowhere. Does Rachel [[SourceMusic play it for you over the intercom]]? Is Alan hearing it in his head because [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome he enjoyed the Children of The Elder God fight more than he let on]]? Or perhaps it's [[FridgeBrilliance part of the soundtrack to the episode of Night Springs he is living]]?

** The {{Bear Trap}}s are typically a minor annoyance. Getting caught in them doesn't do much damage, but you have to button mash your way out of them plus they spawn a Taken next to you that you have to deal with after. A NoGearLevel covered in bear traps, however? Brutal. Get caught in one, you have no way of fighting the Taken that spawns, so you run away, leading you to get caught in more bear traps since you aren't moving slowly and carefully, which summons more Taken.

* HarsherInHindsight: "Rusty used to be human, but now he's just black coffee wrapped under a thin layer of skin."

* CompleteMonster: First game & ''AWE'' (''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' {{DLC}}): [[spoiler:[[PsychoPsychologist Dr. Emil Hartman]] is an infamous psychiatrist who works with artists, and at first appears to be a passive annoyance. It's soon revealed he is aware of the Dark Presence and wishes to [[RealityWarper control its reality warping powers]]; his clinic is a front to lure in artists and expose them to the Dark Presence as part of his experiments, [[DrivenToMadness driving them insane]] in the process. It also turns out that Hartman was Thomas Zane's assistant, and [[ManipulativeBastard manipulated]] Zane into writing his deceased wife back to life, turning her into the Dark Presence's avatar and resulting in countless people being Taken or consumed over the decades. After luring Alan and Alice Wake to Bright Falls, and Alice goes missing, Hartman stages Alice's kidnapping to lure Alan to him. In his clinic, Hartman tries to convince Alan that Alice is dead and everything he experienced is a delusion. In ''AWE'', Hartman arrogantly doubled down on his research after his arrest and brush with death, eventually transforming into a murderous monster himself.]]

* SpiritualAdaptation: Remedy could not have made a better adaptation of ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness'' if they'd ''tried''.

* CompleteMonster:
** First game & ''AWE'' (''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' {{DLC}}): [[spoiler:[[PsychoPsychologist Dr. Emil Hartman]] is an infamous psychiatrist who works with artists, and at first appears to be a passive annoyance. It's soon revealed he is aware of the Dark Presence and wishes to [[RealityWarper control its reality warping powers]]; his clinic is a front to lure in artists and expose them to the Dark Presence as part of his experiments, [[DrivenToMadness driving them insane]] in the process. It also turns out that Hartman was Thomas Zane's assistant, and [[ManipulativeBastard manipulated]] Zane into writing his deceased wife back to life, turning her into the Dark Presence's avatar and resulting in countless people being Taken or consumed over the decades. After luring Alan and Alice Wake to Bright Falls, and Alice goes missing, Hartman stages Alice's kidnapping to lure Alan to him. In his clinic, Hartman tries to convince Alan that Alice is dead and everything he experienced is a delusion. In ''AWE'', Hartman arrogantly doubled down on his research after his arrest and brush with death, eventually transforming into a murderous monster himself.]]
** First game & ''Alan Wake's American Nightmare'': "[[CardCarryingVillain Mr. Scratch]]" is the [[EvilDoppelganger doppelgänger]] of Alan Wake, born from rumors and hearsay spoken about Alan, and has an intense desire to both KillAndReplace his counterpart as well as usher in total chaos. Making a pact with the Dark Place to work towards unleashing its denizens onto the mortal plane to annihilate countless lives and laws of reality, Mr. Scratch becomes a SerialKiller in his free time, priding himself on drawing out his victims' deaths and killing them for the most random, petty reasons. Mr. Scratch masterminds the plot of ''American Nightmare'', in which he traps Alan in a time loop of death and destruction while threatening the town of Night Springs, hoping to wipe out the entire town and Alan himself, all while leaving Alan recordings of Mr. Scratch's murders and confessed intentions to ruin Alan's relationships and slaughter his wife and best friend before ending the world, "[[ForTheEvulz just for kicks]]".

* PortingDisaster: the Switch port is plagued with performance issues and a bad framerate especially in handheld mode that can make the game unbearable to play.

** It has so many homages to the Twilight Zone that it's been described as a playable episode of the series.

** First game & ''AWE'' (''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' {{DLC}}): [[PsychoPsychologist Dr. Emil Hartman]] is an infamous psychiatrist who works with artists, and at first appears to be a passive annoyance. It's soon revealed he is aware of the Dark Presence and wishes to [[RealityWarper control its reality warping powers]]; his clinic is a front to lure in artists and expose them to the Dark Presence as part of his experiments, [[DrivenToMadness driving them insane]] in the process. It also turns out that Hartman was Thomas Zane's assistant, and [[ManipulativeBastard manipulated]] Zane into writing his deceased wife back to life, turning her into the Dark Presence's avatar and resulting in countless people being Taken or consumed over the decades. After luring Alan and Alice Wake to Bright Falls, and Alice goes missing, Hartman stages Alice's kidnapping to lure Alan to him. In his clinic, Hartman tries to convince Alan that Alice is dead and everything he experienced is a delusion. In ''AWE'', Hartman arrogantly doubled down on his research after his arrest and brush with death, eventually transforming into a murderous monster himself.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/RemedyEntertainment went out halfway across the world to sit down and take thousands of pictures of a small pacific town surrounded by forests and mountains just so they could capture the appropriate feel of it. As a result, they created one of the most atmospheric games out there.