This week Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment came down to the fancy Bryant Park hotel in NYC to show off two new sections from Alan Wake, their upcoming action/horror title. The first game from the studio since 2003’s Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Alan Wake is hugely anticipated, and I’m here to tell you that it looks well worth the wait.

I met briefly with Remedy owner Matias Myllyrinne before sitting down on the couch to be talked through a demo of the game by Head of Franchise Development Oskari Häkkinen and writer Sam Lake, who most gamers would probably instantly recognize as the face of Max Payne. Despite a long week full of travel and appointments the guys seem wide awake at this early hour, and really excited to be finally showing a near-final build of the game to press. Being the horror guy that I am, I got settled in and was pleased to see that the surround sound in the room was absolutely pumping- the better to be fully immersed in this creepy world.

The backstory- Alan Wake is the lead character of the game, a famous novelist who heads to a remote town called Bright Falls with his wife, hoping to combat some crippling writer’s block. It’s at the beginning of the game that our demo begins, with Alan’s wife dropping him off in front of a diner.
 
Immediately after entering the diner you’re assaulted by the waitress, who
is a huge fan of yours, as evidenced by the life-size standee of Alan
that greets you by the door. After the cutscene, control moves over to
the player. Walking around the room shows off a plethora of stuff to
interact with, everything from coffee to a jukebox to other customers in
the diner. But you’re there to meet with the owner of the place in his
back office, as he has the keys to the house you’ve rented.

You head to the back of the diner and come upon a hallway that’s sheathed in shadows, a solitary flickering light your only source of illumination. An old woman stands at the edge of the light, flicking the switch in vain, clutching a lamp in her wrinkled hands. As you go by she warns that you’ll hurt yourself in the dark, so you should be careful.

Foreshadowing? Indeed. Light is everything in this game- your livelihood and your greatest weapon. In the daylight you’re safe, but when the sun goes down (or you’re forced into a dark area), you must use all of your tools to illuminate your way and keep yourself alive.
 
As you walk through the darkness Alan narrates his own story, revealing his thoughts and concerns. It’s a trick that Remedy used to great effect in Max Payne but here it feels even more natural, the writer jotting down the story in his head. When you finally get to the back and let yourself into the office it appears empty, but suddenly an apparition appears in front of you. A cutscene kicks in as you find out that it’s the owner’s wife, face hidden behind a veil, standing in the dark. The mysterious woman hands you a key and directions in her long, pale fingers and you take it, exiting the room and dark hallway. As you walk past the old lady (who’s still fiddling with the light switch) she mentions how happy she is that you got out ok.

That was the end of the short scene, an example of what the gameplay will be like during the daytime sections. The game is broken up into numerous “episodes” and each one will offer a different challenge, especially depending on whether it’s day or night. Daytime gives the game more of an exploratory adventure game feel, while the night brings out the creatures in the dark, and the horror and action thrives. There are even episodes that seem to be boss battles (more on that later) which makes sense, since Lake tells me that the game steadily ramps up during the game, turning from suspense to more of an all-out action title.

Lake guides us to the second section of the game, one that’s much later that has ever been shown before. As with every episode there’s a little “Previously on Alan Wake” preview that shows important plot points to the specific episode, and we see that Alan has lost his wife and is in the middle of finding pages from a novel that he doesn’t remember writing. The craziest part is that everything he wrote down seems to come true. The world around him is changing and going crazy, shadows consuming the locals who attack you and your friends, and Alan’s starting to lose his grip on reality…

Head to part 2 of the preview for more, including a new trailer!