Returning to Bright Falls: Alan Wake Remastered Review

The original Alan Wake has sat in my Steam library for years, staring at me. Watching my every move. Waiting for the day I might finally finish it. I ah, never ended up finishing it. I did, however, buy the remastered version on PlayStation 5 when it came up for sale for about $4. Could I have bought the remaster through Epic Games and played it natively on my Steam Deck? Probably. But at $4 I was happy streaming it through PXPlay. The original release also runs on Steam Deck and could even be a touch darker than the remaster, it also performs much, much better. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to get back to this one for a long time and after finally crushing through it for the first time I have to hand it to Remedy. They delivered a well-written, atmospheric adventure that stays creepy right to the end.

Alan Wake was originally released by Remedy Entertainment in 2010, with the remaster arriving just 11 years later in 2021. Alan Wake, who would have guessed, is the main character and he’s a successful fiction writer from New York who has been struck down with a bad case of writer’s block. Taking a trip with his wife Alice to a picturesque remote mountain town, a vacation might just be exactly what they need. In the lead up, Alan has nightmares about shadowy figures trying to kill him so you already get an idea about how their trip to Bright Falls is going to go. Within hours of arriving, Alice goes missing and Alan has a blackout episode which has him lose a whole week. The small town charm collides with the ever growing supernatural dark presence tied to the town’s Cauldron Lake. Alan quickly becomes the unwilling main character of his own horror story, forced to battle the dark presence to rescue his wife. The game is presented in chapters, exactly like a novel but more likened to a TV show. It comes complete with ominous “previously on Alan Wake” recaps. It all works brilliantly to tie the story together.

The most surprising thing about Alan Wake is just how simple it is to play. It’s what you come to expect from Remedy, a fairly linear story-driven game that isn’t crammed full of bloated features. The game mechanics are straightforward and they’re built on the premise of light vs. darkness which works fantastically. You battle the darkness and ‘the Taken’, townsfolk corrupted by the supernatural dark presence which haunts Bright Falls. With your trusty flashlight, you use the light to burn away the darkness enslaving them before you can take them out. The interface is very clean and obviously draws from Remedy’s Max Payne in terms of look and feel. There are a few things you’ll need to manage: how much juice is left in your flashlight, when to use your flares or flashbangs and of course your ammo. Later in the game when you become overrun by the Taken, managing these resources effectively becomes absolutely crucial. Sometimes it’s a smarter play to sprint for the next light source than to stand and fight. A big part of the game is the tension when the Taken appear, even when there’s only a couple of them it feels like it’s going to be a fierce battle. Alan Wake isn’t some big action hero, he’s a fiction writer and it appears like the game wants you to hold onto that feeling. The remaster doesn’t change an awful lot, it still looks and feels similar with I guess a more modern look in terms of graphics. The pacing remains refreshingly tight too, especially compared with later titles.

The story and atmosphere are really where Alan Wake shows its strength. The writing is sharp and really leans into that Twin Peaks-style weirdness. Throughout each chapter, you’ll collect manuscript pages which describe events before they happen and I feel this is a smart storytelling trick that suits the game perfectly. This adds an element of percieved dread to those tense moments and you never quite know if what’s happening is real, a hallucination brought on by the darkness or something that Alan has written into this nightmare himself. Bright Falls makes for a solid setting and it has that small town vibe where everybody knows everybody which ties into the creepiness. The characters are well written, especially Alan’s agent Barry Wheeler who provides some comedic relief allowing Alan to play that serious straight-man perfectly. Remedy absolutely nails the atmosphere, their eerie small town full of dark secrets could easily be mistaken for somewhere in Maine straight out of a Stephen King Novel. The forests are detailed and they’re unnervingly dark, the soundtrack works perfectly to build tension and high-pressure situations. The overall presentation still holds up incredibly well. I played most of it at night and each chapter almost felt like I was binge-watching my way through an intense late night thriller. The remaster definitely doesn’t try to hide the game’s 2010 style, it remains moody, detailed and striking in all the right ways.

Alan Wake Remastered clearly doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it try or even want to. This is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be: a story-driven, third-person thriller that leans hard on its atmosphere and writing. The mechanics aren’t world-breaking and that absolutely works in its favour, letting the story take center stage while delivering tense encounters with the dark presence. For me, this one is all about the writing and the atmosphere. Remedy nailed the mix of horror and surreal mystery with emotional, hard-hitting storytelling. The town of Bright Falls gives us an eerie, unsettling backdrop full of eccentric characters and secrets that could comfortably slot into any Stephen King novel. The episodic format, with its cliffhangers and cheesy recaps make it feel like you’re watching a thriller late at night with the lights off. The game is presented simply, but is creepy and clever in all the right ways. Alan Wake is yet another example that keeping things simple can deliver some of the best experiences out there.

Verdict:
Alan Wake Remastered is a reminder that you don’t need jam-packed systems or an endless stream of side content to deliver a memorable experience. Remedy leans HARD into atmosphere, writing and tension to deliver a thriller that feels sharp and unsettling at times. It’s a simple, more linear experience that proves sometimes less is really more.

Deck Compatibility: 6/10*
Overall Game Rating: 8.5/10

*There are some compatibility issues with the Remastered version on the Steam Deck which seems to affect AMD processors in general. If you prefer to play natively on the Steam Deck, I’d suggest playing the original version instead. It isn’t a huge downgrade in graphics anyway. The original runs a lot better and is much less of a battery drain. Alternatively, like I did, you can stream the game from various sources. I streamed from my PlayStation 5 via the PXPlay app.