The story follows bestselling crime thriller novelist Alan Wake as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance during a vacation in the small fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington, all while experiencing events from the plot of his latest novel, which he cannot remember writing, coming to life.

Additionally, a six-episode live-action web series called Bright Falls acts as a prequel to the game, and a number of related books also expand upon the Alan Wake story.

The main gameplay happens in various areas of Bright Falls—such as the forest, a national park, or a farm—during the night time; these are punctuated by calmer, non-combative sequences set during the day.

Besides the conventional shooter gameplay need for reloading ammunition, the player must also insert fresh batteries into the flashlight when they run out, or wait for it to recharge slowly.

These readable manuscript pages are scattered around the game world, out of chronological order; they often describe scenes that have yet to occur and act as warning and instructions for proceeding through upcoming challenges.

[6] Alan Wake (voiced by Matthew Porretta) is a bestselling crime fiction author from New York City who suffers from a two-year stretch of writer's block.

He and his wife Alice travel to the small mountain town of Bright Falls, Washington, for a short vacation at the advice of their friend and agent Barry Wheeler.

As they unpack, Alice reveals that the real purpose of their trip is to help break his writer's block by arranging for him to see a famous Bright Falls psychologist named Dr. Emil Hartman.

While fighting the shadows with light, Alan repeatedly encounters an ethereal figure in a diving suit similar to the one from his dream, who leaves behind pages of a manuscript entitled Departure.

He awakens in the lodge overlooking Cauldron Lake under the care of Hartman who claims Alan is experiencing a psychotic break, triggered by Alice drowning.

It had previously tried this with a poet named Thomas Zane—the figure in the diving suit—by taking the form of his spouse who drowned in the lake, Barbara Jagger, the old woman Alan encountered.

Weaver leads them to the "Well-Lit Room" containing a light switch known as the Clicker, which, through the power of Alan's writings, possesses the narrative ability to destroy the Dark Presence.

The basic elements of the narrative were set early on: Alan Wake as a successful writer finds himself in the small town of Bright Falls where due to supernatural events his writings have come to life to attack him.

[10] To further distance this next game from the linear style of Max Payne, Remedy planned Bright Falls as a free-roaming, sandbox-style open world city, similar to those seen in the Grand Theft Auto series.

[10] They developed a semi-automatic system to help generate this open world using biomes and other features based on their research on the Pacific Northwest where Bright Falls was set.

[10] According to Remedy's creative director Sam Lake, this approach created numerous difficulties in establishing a story and narrative for the thriller to explain how the gameplay elements tied together with the supernatural events.

[10] The game, still designed around this open-world approach, was announced at E3 2005 in June for "the next generation of consoles and PCs", and was shown to the press behind closed doors in the form of a tech demo.

[14][15] Remedy still continued to struggle with merging the open-world survival gameplay and story, now further complicated with Microsoft's involvement and suggestions for improvement, which Lake compared to a "too many cooks" situation.

[10] This took about two months but from it came the revised gameplay loop, which they were able to reapply to the existing open-world setting they had, breaking it apart into linear chapter-sized levels for the final game and adding some additional assets as needed.

"[27] According to creator Sam Lake, Alan Wake is influenced by, and pays homage to two main sources, one being the works of David Lynch - specifically Twin Peaks - and the other being the bestselling author, Stephen King.

[36] In addition to King's work, Lake has cited the stories of Bret Easton Ellis and Neil Gaiman as influences, as well as Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.

A prominent borrowing from television is the "Previously on Alan Wake..." recap sequence that opens each episode, and serve to "refresh the player's memory and point to things that will become relevant shortly.

When scanned, these tags redirect players to a phone number with the voicemail from one of the game's characters, or to a Verizon-sponsored web site where users gain access to exclusive Alan Wake extras for their console.

Due to expiration of these music licenses, all digital and retail versions of Alan Wake were pulled from purchase from the various storefronts in May 2017; Remedy offered a large discount for the title in the days prior to removal.

The six episodes of Bright Falls were co-written and directed by Phillip Van,[68] and they serve as a prequel to the game, set in the eponymous town before Alan Wake arrives there.

During 2010, two "special feature" episodes of Alan Wake were developed and released as downloadable content (DLC) on the Xbox Live service, which serve to bridge the gap between the game's ending, and a possible sequel.

"[90] The Daily Telegraph rated the game 9/10 with editor Nick Cowen being impressed by its "stunning" look, stating the town of Bright Falls and its surrounding environment to be "authentic" in terms of architecture, vegetation, weather and lighting.

[95] Tom McShea criticised the game for lacking "surprising, memorable gameplay moments" in his review for GameSpot, but hailed it for its "fresh" story-telling, great original as well as licensed music, "subtle" lighting effects, which, along with the soundtrack, "create a disturbing atmosphere", "satisfying" combat system and "clever" inclusion of collectibles, giving a final score of 8.5/10.

During events of Control, Hartman escaped, and the fusion of the Hiss and Dark Presence became a monstrous being that Jesse is forced to subdue, with advice given to her by Alan through mysterious visions.

Contradiction Film's Tomas Harlan had seen Alan Wake's potential as a television series, in part that the game was constructed in episodic chapters and presented in a linear fashion, and had spoken to Lake about it several times, and in 2018 began to start on a firm planning process, which including bringing Calloway on board during the E3 2018.