Mild spoilers for Alan Wake are in this article, so be warned!
I’m a pretty anxious guy. Because of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), I find a lot of things to be very unsettling, including writing this fairly forthcoming article. I’m not big on talking about these facets of myself, as I really, really don’t want to be defined by or known for these afflictions, but they’re still a part of me. In the end, I get by, like everybody else. That said, I still find it quite interesting when a piece of media attempts to convey what anxiety feels like through its own medium. That’s why I found myself becoming so enamored by Alan Wake Remastered, which feels like someone gamified my anxiety with stunning accuracy.
(Keep in mind that I’m not speaking for everyone with these disorders, just myself. If you can relate to it, that’s awesome, but I’m not implying that this experience is universal.)
Alan Wake is a fascinating game to me. As you can see if you check out my review, I adored it. The gameplay is fun enough, but the real appeal of the game, for me at least, comes from its atmosphere. Much of Alan Wake takes place at night, as that’s when the dark presence is capable of pursuing Alan through Bright Falls. There’s fog, tall trees, and a stifling sense of loneliness that, at its core, echoes the anxiety that I, and many others, often feel. It uses this anxiety-inducing atmosphere to spook players, and in doing so, portrays a few different types of anxiety with startling accuracy.
At times, it kind of taps into a childhood sense of fear, the kind you felt after you saw a scary movie or read one of those spooky chain letters a bit too late at night. In-game and in real life, the darkness suddenly feels like an ominous presence. One that threatens to consume you whole if you let down your guard for even a second. Maybe you listen to comforting music, like Alan listens to Pat’s nighttime radio show, to find some sort of minimal comfort in the harsh blackness of the seemingly eternal night. Your cold bedroom light feels like the only thing that can keep you safe (much like Alan’s trusty clicker,) as you try to pass time so that you can reach the safety of the dawn. It’s a type of anxiety I haven’t had since I was a kid, so feeling it again was as nostalgic as it was unnerving.
A lot of the time, though, it emulates the subtle, constant anxiety that comes with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. When, sometimes for no real reason at all, you’re put on edge. As things start to get worse, there’s a blurriness to your surroundings that makes everything seem eerie– portrayed in-game by the blurry Taken enemies that constantly appear out of nowhere. This makes everything feel more tense, like when the originally subtle strings in the background of Alan Wake start to ramp-up and shriek. Everything feels loud and overwhelming– not coincidentally, out of nowhere. It’s a panic attack in game form, one that you can’t just shake off. It’s really effective at freaking you out over time, like GAD so easily does. Standing under a dense light, out of breath as Alan so often does, just feels representative of me, and so many others, when we’re battling our fears.
This goes a step further in the DLC episodes, The Signal and The Writer. Taking place in The Dark Place, these episodes feel like stress dreams I’ve yet to have. Everything is familiar or known to me (or in this case, Alan,) but they’re distorted and unnerving. People you know don’t act as they should, and your worst, innermost fears are on full display. Maybe your friends all dislike you but are too polite to say anything, or maybe your partner thinks you’re inadequate as a person. I, personally, have never had to go so far as battling my friends in my dreams with flashlights and shotguns, but the rest tracks. You don’t feel much better after waking up, but at least you’re not so deep in The Dark Place anymore.
Hell, building on that, the whole concept of Alan’s evil doppelganger, Mr. Scratch, nails what anxiety does to you over time. You feel like there’s a different you somewhere inside, making things more difficult for you at every turn. Imposing doubts, fears, and worst-case scenarios upon you at inopportune times. That successful writer, or happy kid, gets overshadowed by this somber asshole inside your head who just seems to exist to make things tougher. It’s the light that comes from things like friends and family, that pushes your own personal Mr. Scratch back, like the memories at the end of American Nightmare. That’s not included in the Remaster, but reddit says it’s canon, so I’m including it.
I couldn’t find a lot of information involving Alan Wake and its relation to anxiety, which surprised me. The game so perfectly captures the slow crawl of anxiety, and the sharp spikes of panic attacks, that I’d be genuinely shocked if prominent members of the original dev team didn’t have experience with at least GAD. It’s just too crazy to me that this pitch-perfect sense of anxiety was made by coincidence. If it was, that’s incredible, because I’ve never felt that a game got me like Alan Wake does.
So if you’re lucky enough to not suffer from anxiety, but you want a sense of what it feels like, I recommend checking out Alan Wake. As a game, it’s great and special, but as an anxiety simulator, it’s next-level. It makes me feel seen in a way that no other media has, and it might do the same for you. I mean, I’m not out here literally fighting shadow-people and having trucks thrown at me by poltergeists, but other than that, it’s pretty damn spot-on.
