Alan Wake Or How I Knew Writing For Video Games Now Had A Standard

It was Ali Maggs who kept saying “You need to play Alan Wake”.

Now, I was used to Ali telling me to check out games, but he was never as persistent as he was with this one. He promised me that when I got it, I would know what he meant.

Folks who know me, know me as the writer with a penchant for material that is emotionally driven but that has a good sci-fi or supernatural element built into the story. I grew up with the X-Files, matured with Lost and Dollhouse and now count Fringe and the upcoming Touch as some of my favourite shows.

So when I slipped Alan Wake into my Xbox, I was blown away at how much importance story was being given, and yet unlike something like the latest Metal Gear Solid, which was a mess of cut scenes, Alan Wake leveraged the episodic format to create something that I feel is almost like what ‘Seven’ did for the serial killer genre. It set a standard. Add to that the fact that the main character was a writer who has to fight off supernatural forces to save his wife and I was set!

Last weekend whilst I was out in Bristol working on Zombies Ate My City, Ali popped on the Twin Peaks box set I got him for his birthday last year and we both revelled in seeing how the show had influenced the game. Even the diner scene in the pilot is reminiscent of when Alan walks into the diner to get the keys to the cabin!

It’s that which I think really blew me away as a writer. The game manages to weave a highly original story, in fact a story with a very conceptual idea which is unusual in big, tent-pole games but it also anchors that with some familiar visual and cultural cues that help immerse the audience even further right from the start.

It’s all in there; Twin Peaks, The X Files, Stephen King.

So here’s me waiting to play American Nightmare, but also dreaming of one day being on the team that perhaps writes the much wanted Alan Wake 2.

Hmmm, maybe I just wrote that dream into existence ala Alan