Part of the lasting enchantment of Alan Wake is its variety of dangling plot threads and unanswered mysteries. Fans love the sport’s ambiance, its story, its characters, and many else–but many additionally simply actually wish to know the reply to a few of the questions Alan Wake poses however doesn’t resolve. We not too long ago spoke to Remedy’s artistic director and Alan Wake scribe, Sam Lake, who revealed his method to answering mysteries–or not answering them, as is typically his desire. But on condition that a few of the authentic sport’s mysteries will seemingly advantage solutions, we’re taking stock of the place we left off and the place the story may go subsequent. Here are seven Alan Wake mysteries which may get solutions in Alan Wake 2.”It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.”Perhaps essentially the most well-known of the sport’s mysteries can be its least more likely to be neatly resolved. Alan’s final phrases of the 2010 sport (excluding DLC) are delivered like a revelation, however they weren’t practically as epiphanic to gamers as they appeared to be to Alan.It could also be that we’ll get extra readability on what this means–maybe it pertains to the vastness of the Dark Place and/or the corrupting affect of the Dark Presence–or perhaps it is simply form of poetically attention-grabbing and we must always cease questioning about it a lot. It does, nevertheless, tie carefully to Thomas Zane’s poem that he recites when he seems to Alan in a dream initially of the game–a poem that not coincidentally hyperlinks to Quantum Break, too:For he didn’t know, that past the lake he referred to as residence,Lies a deeper, darker ocean inexperienced.Where waves are each wilder and extra serene.To its ports I’ve been,To its ports I’ve been.Because of this oddity–referencing Beth Wilder and Paul Serene from Quantum Break–I feel a 3rd risk is that it pertains to the Remedy Connected Universe. I’m unsure Remedy had this in thoughts again when it made Alan Wake, at the least not in title, however in both case it might form of be retrofitted to the RCU anyway. As we study in Control, Cauldron Lake appears to be a Place of Power, or a location that defies the pure world in methods the Federal Bureau of Control is tasked with investigating. Did Alan, amid his sudden burst of readability, come to know that the weirdness of Bright Falls is going on elsewhere, seems totally different elsewhere, and is all related in some way?Code phrase: Night SpringsIn Episode 5 of Alan Wake, Alan learns from Sheriff Sarah Breaker that a few of the city’s residents are conscious of the unusual goings-on of Bright Falls, even going to this point to joke that it as soon as served because the inspiration for Night Springs, the in-universe TV anthology sequence modeled after The Twilight Zone.We study within the sport that Breaker and her “secret society” use the title of this sequence as a code phrase, virtually like a name to motion. In her group is native radio host Pat Maine in addition to her father, a former detective and Federal Bureau of Control agent, Frank Breaker (presumably amongst others). What we do not know is what they did with this data. Once knowledgeable, what have been their subsequent steps? We will not seemingly see their actions as they transpired that night time, however may we get extra data on what this group is aware of and what it does with that data?Thomas ZanePerhaps the thriller that causes me essentially the most and strongest complications is Thomas Zane. In Alan Wake lore, he’s a poet who visited Bright Falls in 1970 and had an identical expertise to Alan when he arrived there 40 years later. Zane’s muse, Barbara Jagger, was claimed by the Dark Presence, and Zane had to make use of Cauldron Lake’s powers to make fiction a actuality by writing his ending, which resulted in self-sacrifice however solely after abandoning a shoebox for a personality he created to search out later. In the shoebox was an object: the Clicker Alan makes use of to defeat the Dark Presence posing as Jagger.But the weirdest part–yes, in some way none of that was the weirdest part–is that the character Zane wrote into actuality was… Alan Wake. Or was it? Later, when Alan is writing his personal escape, it appears as if he writes Zane into actuality. So which was it? Well, I feel that is one we are going to by no means truly get a solution on, as Sam Lake has expressed his appreciation for time loops lots over time, together with on the Alan Wake Remastered commentary observe, and plenty of time-loop tales appear gleefully written to be obscure about this explicit “Stable Time Loop” paradox, so I do count on we’ll by no means know for certain. But will it’s toyed with some extra within the sequel?Mr. ScratchOkay, truly this one provides me the worst complications. Mr. Scratch, who derives his title from the noise that performs over Thomas’s voice when he first introduces him to Alan close to the top of the unique sport, is seemingly Alan’s doppelganger who is supposed to interchange Alan in the true world whereas Alan is caught within the Dark Place–which he has now been caught in for 13 years, although I believe time strikes in another way there.But Mr. Scratch will get much more complicated after that. He appears to have grow to be some form of twisted serial killer. According to 2012’s quasi-sequel, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, as Alan disappeared, rumors stirred concerning the creator’s actions in Bright Falls. Those twisted city legends took root in Mr. Scratch, who started to behave out the fiction-turned-reality killings folks gossiped about Alan having dedicated. This basically allowed Cauldron Lake to delivery a killer that appears like Alan.Even if that is true, what’s he been as much as since then? Surely a serial killer of his obvious stature hasn’t been working free for 13 years, or has he? Furthermore, why did Thomas Zane seemingly set him free on the finish of the sport? Did he not see the darkish flip coming?No doubt, Alan Wake 2 will introduce loads of new mysteries, too.Mr. DoorIn contrast to Mr. Scratch, Mr. Door would not appear to even seem in Alan Wake, at the least not but. First talked about by Dylan Faden in an optionally available scene in Control, Jesse’s brother alleges that Mr. Door is a few form of interdimensional being who teaches Dylan a few of the methods of the multiverse with which Mr. Door is intimately acquainted. I think about this monologue, which you’ll be able to learn beneath, to be crucial piece of the Remedy Connected Universe’s puzzle, because it appears to tie all 4 of Remedy’s most up-to-date sequence collectively.”I was in a dark place, and there was a dark man there. His name was Mr. Door, and he told me that there are many worlds–side-by-side, on top of each other, some inside of others. In one world, there was a writer who wrote a story about a cop. In another world, the cop was real. Door said he himself was in all of them at the same time, endlessly shifting between them.”If we take what Mr. Door says as true, I consider this character is one and the identical as Martin Hatch from Quantum Break, performed by the late nice Lance Reddick. His name–Hatch/Door–seems to even be yet one more Remedy-style title pun. Hatch was a “shifter,” an interdimensional being, so I consider his likeness might look totally different in several worlds or timelines, one thing Quantum Break already touches on. I count on Mr. Door to seem in several kinds in future Remedy video games.Where Hatch mentions a cop, he’s talking of Alex Casey, Alan’s novel protagonist who’s now in some way actual in Alan Wake 2. Casey can be broadly understood to be legally distinct Max Payne. We already know Control and Alan Wake are in the identical universe, so this Mr. Door monologue seems to be the one occasion of Remedy bridging all 4 of its related video games to date–though, like Max Payne, Remedy might want to forge forward with out direct ties to Quantum Break on account of Microsoft at the moment proudly owning the IP. Furthermore, when Dylan mentions being in a darkish place, he might have actually been within the Dark Place.But all of that is preamble to catch you as much as the thriller we may even see addressed in Alan Wake 2: Who actually is Mr. Door, and what’s his significance to the RCU? Might we see him, or mentions of him, within the sequel? Is it attainable that he’s even the RCU’s model of the MCU’s Thanos–the Big Bad who’s merely referenced early on because the story builds towards a dramatic showdown?The Oceanview Hotel/MotelOne of many oddest issues within the newest Alan Wake 2 trailer is the sighting of the Oceanview Hotel, a vertically constructed city-style lodge that shares an almost equivalent title with the a lot flatter, extra rural-looking Oceanview Motel in Control. Why the venues have barely totally different names, I chalk as much as it mixing into its environment. We know in Alan Wake 2, Alan’s model of the Dark Place is taking part in off his recollections of residing in New York, so the Oceanview could also be presenting as one thing becoming of its city setting.My larger query with the Oceanview pertains to its true nature. I consider the Oceanview to be a transit junction spanning all related worlds within the RCU. Of the a number of locked doorways we see in Control, each has a unique image on it, and we solely see two of them definitively accounted for. We see Jesse enter via one among them, with an the wrong way up triangle–the image of the sport’s mysterious Board–when coping with the occasions of Control, and within the “AWE” DLC, it is implied that Alan’s world is behind one other, one with a spiral design.It’s additionally steered that one other door, with an emblem of two overlapping circles, is expounded to a paranatural terrorist group referred to as The Blessed Organization, which is likely to be a teaser for Remedy’s subsequent RCU entry. From all this, we are able to deduce that three of the Oceanview’s six marked and locked doorways are accounted for, and each appears straight tied to a unique RCU storyline.This leaves three different doorways marked with odd symbols and unexplained. Is the Oceanview the interdimensional nexus of all Remedy’s shared worlds previous and current? I do consider so, and with the Oceanview showing in Alan Wake 2, I believe we might get extra readability concerning its nature, whether or not my hypothesis is on the mark or approach off.Jesse FadenAs the star of Control, we perhaps needn’t see Jesse featured prominently in Alan Wake 2. After all, we all know hers and Alan’s worlds are carefully linked, with Bright Falls showing to be the location of a recurring Altered World Event and Alan probably accountable for creating the Hiss in Control–plus roughly two-dozen different ties, in fact. But I do marvel if we’ll see point out of Jesse in some unspecified time in the future in Alan Wake 2. With Remedy engaged on a Control sequel, it might be enjoyable for essentially the most invested followers to get a glimpse of what Jesse is as much as through the occasions of Alan Wake 2.My guess is her title will come up in some paperwork that Saga finds in Bright Falls, and I might even look forward to finding the Federal Bureau of Control working in Bright Falls, maybe butting heads with the FBI for jurisdiction. But will Jesse herself present up? Maybe within the DLC, however no sooner, I predict.For extra on Alan Wake 2, do not miss our unique deep dive on the sport’s co-protagonist, Saga Anderson.
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