Alan Wake II Helped Recontextualized My Mental Health

by Trey Taylor

Content warning: Spoilers for Alan Wake and Alan Wake II, as well as topics of self harm and s*****e are discussed in this essay. IF you would like to avoid spoilers, or find the discussed topics difficult to read, please stop here.

Starting over is never easy.  Making any sort of progress only to end up back where you started often feels like its own unique form of horror. I’ve had to start over at several points in my 32 years of living, and I often viewed those endings and new beginnings as failures, especially in the first two years of my 30s.

Within a span of 18 months between 2023 and 2024, I managed to: go through a long mental breakdown that was the catalyst for my relationship ending and caused me to alienate several people in my life, quit a job where I was working harder than most of my co-workers and making less than them, start a new job for a major nerd company where I got COVID for a second time (first time was from the formerly mentioned job) only to quit within 9 months because my department head admitted she threw me under the bus to avoid getting in trouble, and have my father admit that money is far more important to him than any relationship in his life. 

On top of all of that, I had to go through several tests and expensive doctor visits due to COVID mutating my food allergies, destroying my immune system, as well as dealing with new anxiety disorders like syncope that were causing further memory issues. By May of 2024 I was more exhausted than I had ever been.

As a means of making money and having fun at the same time, I decided to start a Let’s Play channel (yeah, I know how that sounds). I had always wanted to do a New Game Plus run of Alan Wake II, my favorite video game of the decade so far.

As I started up the game, I remembered one of the final quotes from my first, and at that point only, play through of the game: “We are not doomed to repeat our failures in an eternal loop. This is a spiral.”

Alan Wake II is a survival horror game developed by Remedy Entertainment and co-published by Epic Games. Released on October 27, 2023, the game quickly became one of the most talked about games for the rest of the year and much of 2024 due not only to the great writing and the very heavy Twin Peaks: The Return influence, but also the unique, and sometimes musical, way it tells its story. The narrative is split between two characters, famous crime novelist Alan Wake, who has been missing since the end of the first game way back in 2010, and FBI Agent Saga Anderson. While both characters’ arcs are thematically tied together by their own unique sense of self-doubt, it’s ultimately the titular character’s doubt that fuels the David Lynch inspired ride.

Alan Wake’s struggles first began back in the first game. To make a long story short, the first Alan Wake revolves around a trip Alan goes on at the suggestion of his wife, Alice Wake (yes, they’re both A. Wake), to Bright Falls, Washington. Bright Falls is home to a lodge run by a psychologist for artists struggling with creative blocks, located on the scenic Cauldron Lake. Feeling that he’s been duped, Alan storms out of the lake house they rented but returns when he hears Alice screaming, only to find she’s disappeared. Also the lake is home to a different dimension housing a malevolent, art-loving entity.

Over the course of the game, Alan learns that Alice has been taken by the Dark Presence which feeds off the negativity and darkest thoughts of anyone near Cauldron Lake. The Dark Presence also has the ability to possess artists and turn their works into real world events. Said entity is writing a manuscript in Alan’s style and voice with the events happening to Alan as he finds the pages in his search. The game ultimately ends with Alan sacrificing himself to save Alice from the Dark Place, the plane on which The Dark Presence exists.

Fast Forward 13 years to Alan Wake II where in the first few hours Saga finds Alan on the shores of Cauldron Lake, with no memory of where he’s been in the years he’s been missing. While Saga’s story surrounds the missing people in relation to Alan’s writing and the strange goings-on in Bright Falls, Alan’s story actually takes place mostly before Saga finds him.

95% of Alan's story takes place in The Dark Place, where he is constantly surrounded by shadows that whisper or shout his name with some serving as enemy NPCs who attack Alan, seemingly at the behest of the Dark Presence. For the first few chapters of Alan's story, Alan's main goal is to get out of the Dark Place and back to Alice, until he realizes that the Dark Presence has been projecting a doppelganger of himself known as Scratch to not only harass Alice, but also edit all of Alan's attempts to leave the Dark Place.

“This all sounds interesting, but what the hell does this have to do with failure?” Great question, Random Internet Reader!

Towards the end of the second act/beginning of the third act of Alan's story, Alan witnesses what is, in my opinion, the most disturbing moment in any game I have ever witnessed. Throughout Alan's story, he returns to his apartment that he and Alice call home in New York City. With every visit, Alan gets glimpses of Alice's life through video diaries she records for what she hopes to be her next photography exhibit.

Eventually, Alice comes to realize that Scratch is actually Alan himself trying to project himself to her, but since he is being slowly corrupted by the Dark Place and the Dark Presence, all that comes through is Alan's rage and frustration a.k.a. Scratch. Alice remembers that Alan sacrificed himself to save her, so she ultimately does the same. This is revealed through a series of snapshots of Alice jumping off a cliff over Cauldron Lake, seemingly committing s*****e.

During Alan's story, we see Alice become increasingly exhausted with Scratch. He appears at night and screams at her, only to vanish as suddenly as he appeared. Alice does manage to capture Scratch on film, but this doesn’t stop him from showing up to harass Alice. She comes to this realization, and decides to take control of her own story and save Alan from the Dark Place, the Dark Presence, and Alan himself. Alice eventually reveals to Saga through an old payphone in the Dark Place that she has a way to save Alan and stop Scratch all at once: a bullet made of light made to purge the Dark Presence from Alan’s mind.

That last bit, however, isn't revealed until the final moments of the game, so depending on how you play the game, you spend literal hours assuming that Alan's struggles and darkness ultimately ended up killing his wife(I played as Alan, then Saga in my first playthrough). But once Saga arrives in the Dark Place (I'm not gonna explain the whole game y'all) and leaves clues for Alan from both the real world and from Alice, Alan is able to not only defeat Scratch, but also purge the Dark Presence fully from his mind by shooting himself in the head with the bullet of light. The line about the closed loop being a spiral is the final line Alan delivers in his story. It’s also about himself. Alan comes to realize he can not solve all of his problems alone, and just because he unintentionally puts others in harm's way does not mean he can't try his best to fix them while bettering himself.

This, to me, was one of the most profound views of not only failure, but self-improvement, Anxiety and Major Depression. Alan eventually comes to realize that he has written several failed attempts to get out of the Dark Place, which made me realize that all of the shadows that attack Alan are actually versions of Alan from failed loops.

Alan is literally his own worst enemy throughout the entire game, but with the help and support of Alice and Saga he's able to realize he's not trapped in a cycle of failure, but progressing through a loop of self-improvement. I don't think a video game character's arc has ever resonated with me so much. Learning that Alice is the one who essentially helps Alan break his current and most violent loop brought me to tears on both playthroughs.

Despite being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II in February, this year has been one of the better years for me, especially as far as my 30s go. I have an incredible support system of family and friends, as well as a nurse practitioner (shout out to Syndie!) who have all guided me and encouraged me in ways I didn't even think would be possible. I've made very intentional and concerted steps to get to where I am. I feel like I'm the healthiest I've ever been, and that's honestly, in part, thanks to playing Alan Wake II again last year. I still fall back into old habits here and there, but I'm able to catch myself and understand it's just a moment that doesn't define me. As Alan says in the opening of The Final Draft (the New Game Plus mode in AWII):

A fictional poet once said: beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle, illuminated. I will not settle for a shadow. I will find the miracle. Through the night. It’s not just victims and monsters. I see now there are heroes as well. We can find our way through the darkness. We will break through the surface. We will emerge into the light.

Never forget that no matter how much you may repeat the same mistakes, no matter how stuck you may feel, it's always possible to learn and correct those mistakes. Our mistakes may shape us, but they need not be defining traits.

Don’t settle for a shadow of yourself. Don’t choose to live in the darkness. You're not in an endless loop of misery and self-doubt. We are not doomed to repeat our failures in an eternal loop. It's a spiral.

Alan Wake II is available on PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games store for PC users.