History VideoGame / AlanWake

* BlownAcrossTheRoom: This tends to happen to the human Taken Alan encounters.

* BagOfSpilling: Between episodes, and sometimes even during them, Alan may lose his flashlight, his weapons, or both. In most cases it's justified. It doesn't make it any less annoying. While the weapons don't matter so much, losing a hood heavy-duty flashlight or even a lantern for the basic crappy flashlight is a real kick in the pants. The flashlights also usually aren't justified - guns are stated to be lost or taken away, but he usually is stated to still have his flashlight, but it's somehow devolved on him.

* HotScientist: Dr. Meadows the astronomer, who's wearing a LittleBlackDress under her lab coat. {{Lampshaded}} by Alan, and she says she was at a party before going to the observatory.

* AnAxeToGrind: Most Taken wield sharp weapons from axes to sickles to chainsaws. More specifically, as with their crazy chant, Taken use profession-appropriate weapons. So a former deputy will be using nightsticks while miners will be using pickaxes and so forth.

* SubliminalSeduction: The Old Gods of Asgard's "[[https://youtu.be/b6RKKCQt82Y?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- Balance slays the Demon]]" has a small section with reversed and sped up lyrics. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRcLYeuK8ZU Play it the right way round]] and you get [[spoiler:"It will happen again, in another town. A town... called [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Ordinary]]."]]

* MainliningTheMonster: The Andersons used unfiltered water from cauldron lake to make their moonshine, which resulted in an incredible high and makes you feel like a god, while also driving you a little bit mad. It made Tor Anderson run through his fields naked in a thunderstorm, trying to catch lightning with his hammer, and apparently led to Odin Anderson cutting his own eye out in order to better emulate the mythical Odin.

* MultiMookMelee: Fight Till Dawn in a nutshell. The Nightmare levels take it UpToEleven, constantly throwing enemies at you.

* StylisticSuck: Arguably any narrative contrivance, plot hole or silly dialogue you might find has a very comfortable explanation. [[spoiler:Alan himself wrote the events of the game, and he's been struggling with feelings of insecurity about his writing for a while now]].

** In Episode 5, Sheriff Breaker escorts you to a helicopter. She has an infinite ammo shotgun.

* MindScrew: The game very deliberately does ''not'' explain everything, because it's a horror story, and "in a horror story, the hero might not survive and not all your questions will be answered".

* CuckooNest: Played arrow-straight where the protagonist awakens at an insane asylum and is told he has hallucinated everything prior. The protagonist does not believe a word of it. [[spoiler: And he is right.]] Later in the DLC chapters, [[spoiler:as he has been split in two personalities, the insane and suicidal part of him tries in a desperate bid to stop the rational and determined part in his attempt to do a SplitPersonalityMerge by suggesting this idea to him once again. It still doesn't work]].

* SameLanguageDub: Surprisingly, Alan's model and voice are [[http://remedygames.com/matthew-porretta-visited-the-remedy-office/ two different people.]] Finnish actor Ilkka Villi acted as Wake's live-action actor, motion capture actor, and even provided the character's model, but the character was voiced by Creator/MatthewPorretta; the reason given was that, while Villi speaks fluent English, his heavy accent meant a professional voice actor was brought in due to Wake's American nationality.

Influenced heavily by other major horror/mystery works, you could say it is Creator/StephenKing meets ''Series/TwinPeaks'', with a large dash of Creator/HPLovecraft. Others have described it as the [[NothingIsScarier House]] ''[[Literature/HouseOfLeaves of Leaves]]'' of video games, and they are not that far off from the truth.

* AdultFear: Losing your spouse has got to be a fear for married people.
** A slightly-more-subtle example — Alan Wake's fear of being a washed-up hack despite his former talent and passion for writing.

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A proper sequel, ''Alan Wake II'', was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_l8ZYXrTT0&ab_channel=GameSpot officially confirmed]] at The Game Awards 2021, with a projected release date of 2023. The game makes a GenreShift from the previous installments into full-on SurvivalHorror.

A proper sequel, ''Alan Wake II'', was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_l8ZYXrTT0&ab_channel=GameSpot officially confirmed]] at The Game Awards 2021, with a projected release date of 2023.

* SurvivalHorror: Though given one discussion over at Gamasutra, your mileage may vary on whether Alan Wake is survival horror or whether it would be better to call it a psychological thriller. The distinction being along the lines of Halloween versus The Shining. In some ways, Alan Wake is best played like ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'' or ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' rather than ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' [[RecycledInSpace in the woods]].
** A discussion that seemingly isn't hampered by the fact that Alan Wake bills itself, right on the very cover, as a Psychological Action Thriller. It isn't helped that some game reviewers / websites take any remotely scary game and slap "survival horror" on it, then complain that it isn't scary or horror enough.

* PretentiousLatinMotto: The phrase written on the sundial at Dr. Hartman's clinic says "In tenebras cadere", which roughly translates to "To fall into darkness".
** Justified, as it was created by a certain [[spoiler:Thomas Zane]].