Schlocktober '24: Alan Wake's American Nightmare is more like a pleasant afternoon nap

Schlocktober '24: When spooky season comes around I start looking for (mostly) mediocre games to satisfy my urge for gore and chills. Some are horror, some are just horror influenced, most are deeply flawed and a little obscure, but as long as they've got spooks and shivers, games of all shapes and sizes can be part of Schlocktober. Games were played, or at least started in October

I was kind of dreading Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, and not in a fun, spooky way, but instead in an “I don’t really want to play this” way. So why did I plan to? Vinnyitus. Even though American Nightmare is not a major part of the Remedyverse, if I was going to play through those games and I had access to it I was going to play it. I’ve owned it since 2014 and it’s backwards compatible on my Series X and rather short so I didn’t have a good reason not to play it, except that I didn’t really want to, which is admittedly a good reason not to play a video game.

But after finally finishing the first Alan Wake’s second DLC I decided to grit my teeth and get through it, hoping it would just be boring rather than a miserable slog.

It turned out to be neither. I had a decent time. It’s certainly not going on a list of my all time favorite games, but I’m ultimately glad I decided to finally get through it. It’s a worthwhile and kind of interesting experiment of a game.

So what is American Nightmare? A direct sequel to Alan Wake (kind of; it may actually be a dream but that also might not matter) it takes place a couple years after the events of the first game. Alan Wake has embraced being the Champion of Light and is locked in eternal battle with Mr. Scratch, an evil version of himself created by the Dark Place. This takes place in a variety of locations that all become Night Springs, the TV show within a game that Alan Wake was a writer for. It has become some kind of traveling supernatural hot spot and now it has taken over a town in Arizona, where strange happenings are afoot. Mr. Scratch has been converting people into “Taken” zombies and gone on a killing spree and Alan arrives to stop him.

If this setup seems convoluted it is, but the whole game operates on a kind of uncanny dream logic. The game has a few locations including a motel near an oil field, an observatory, and a drive in movie theater, and each features a young woman NPC who Alan talks to in order to figure out what’s going on and how he can try to put a stop to it. The narrative also includes video messages from Mr. Scratch and snippets of radio shows that provide background information like what Barry, Alan’s best friend from the first game, and Alan Wake’s wife (and presumed widow) have been up to over the last couple years.

The game proceeds by taking the player through each of the three, small, open maps three separate times, as Alan tries to decode a signal from an unknown source and stop Mr. Scratch and his rampage. Moreso than the first game, American Nightmare is very combat focused, with Alan pursuing various objectives across the maps and fighting a lot of Taken along the way. This is not survival horror, it is a third person shooter, and ammo and batteries for Alan’s flashlight (which he needs to use to strip enemies’ shields of darkness before he shoots them to death) are plentiful. There’s a little exploration that leads to pages from Alan Wake’s novel, which reflect on the happenings and also are used to unlock additional, more powerful, weapons. There are also a few powerful weapons that can be found in out of the way locations on some of the maps.

The reason that I was trepidatious about playing American Nightmare is that I really didn’t want a game that was all about Alan Wake’s combat system. I don’t hate the combat from the first Alan Wake, but I don’t love it either, and that game’s charms were much more in the narrative and atmosphere, as well as the scary parts where you’re overwhelmed and running for the safety of the light, than in the battles. I also thought playing the same three levels three times each would be a serious chore.

Fortunately neither issue was nearly as bad as I feared.

American Nightmare’s combat still isn’t great, but by offering some powerful new weapons like an assault rifle or a crossbow it is a bit more empowering than the original game’s and feels a bit more refined. There are also some new enemies, like a “splitter” who doesn’t have a light shield but breaks apart into two weaker versions of itself if you shine the flashlight at it, that keep things a little bit fresh. Encounters are also remixed across the three times you visit each map, with some being omitted or others having different mixes of enemies, so you don’t feel like you’re forced to replay the same thing repeatedly. I’m not going to say that the combat is thrilling but it is serviceable.

Meanwhile the story stuff is interesting. The way that characters change their perspectives across Alan’s various visits, the way Mr. Scratch starts off arrogant and haughty and ends up sounding like he’s trying to convince himself of his inevitable victory, and Alan’s evolution from the first game are all interesting enough. The locations are cool and just a bit spooky, and there are details to find while exploring, along with those pages and additional weapons. It’s not an essential experience in any form but it is a mostly pleasurable one.

There’s also an arcade mode that lets you focus on pure fighting, with weapon pickups and timed enemy waves, kind of like a Gears of War horde mode should you be so inclined. This has different locations and interacts with the main campaign in that campaign pages can be used to unlock weapon cases in the arcade, but I did not find this bit compelling. The combat works in tandem with exploration and narrative but on its own it remains kind of bleh.

As a short game it doesn’t outstay its welcome and there are enough supernatural spooks and Alan Wake character moments to make it worthwhile. I was kind of dreading this one but while it didn’t end up as anything I loved or feel the need to revisit I was satisfied by my time with it. Remedy remains undefeated for me.

Schlocktober Rating: Surprisingly good old schlock. I really thought this game was going to suck but it didn't. It's nothing amazing and it's very slight but for a little spooky short story for Alan Wake fans it does the job, and it's often very cheap. They should have included it with the remaster. If it were candy it would be a weird discontinued fun sized version of one of your favorite candy bars that you found in an old drawer but despite tasting different from the nromal version was still pretty good.