can someone explain the story to me?

[Biofluorescent Meatball]

So i just finished the game... and... i have nooooooo freakin idea what's going on haha
what happened? i completely lost track of the story especially after the electricity plant.
please, i need a captain xD

[EbonHawk]

Would be better to Google "explanation of AW plot".

But... "you're a writer, you make things come true that you write about.

Thomas Zane had a similar ability, but he wrote himself out of existence, although he did manage to help you out with the hidden caches of weapons and ammo with the glowy yellow paint graffiti."

That's the super simple version.

[Biofluorescent Meatball]

you are right i could have googled it. i was basically looking for a conversation engagement

[EbonHawk]

Oh, well, in that case, let's converse then..

It has a few theories that have cropped up. I'm no expert on the game, but it is my favorite game of all time.

Did you play The Signal and The Writer DLCs? I am still surprised how many people miss those in the menus.

[Gotta light?]

Did you finish the main game or the special episodes? Can you tell me the story to the point from which on you didn't understand anymore?

[Biofluorescent Meatball]

Sadly I only bought the base title because I wasn't sure if I would like it or not.

When I was playing the game I had the feeling that a lot of things were happening in Alan's mind but I wasn't sure what.
When he found himself in the psychiatric institution he is told already that his wife is dead and that he has been there for a while. That moment I suspected - what if that is actually what is happening it's all a mix of dreams and hallucinations and that moment right there was the only piece of reality we got to have, but then this idea broke apart fast as both the doctor and the security guy try to manipulate Alan into going back to writing.
Then near the end, there is a sequence when it is implied that his wife is about to leave him for another guy and Alan stubs her to death and I was so close to believing that this could had been the traumatic event that messed his mind.

But things always kept going away from that, focusing so much in the idea of him finishing the script. And I was so unable to understand what was real and what was not.

[SSSZmeY]

No, stubbing is a Zane's fragment. Alan's dialogue implies that he drowned his wife. Though it's swiftly discarded by Alan as a lie... who knows? "Everything is a hallucination" theory can't be proven or discarded from the inside.

[EbonHawk]

It's the "evil entity" or "The Dark Presence" as a lot have come to call it, just messing with Alan's mind. It wants him to give himself up, bring the evil into the world, give it power, and she/it bargains with him to finish writing, that she will let his wife go in exchange for her coming into the real world.

And if you bought the "base game" then you also have the 2 Extra episodes. Look for them in the menus if you haven't played The Signal and The Writer. They continue the story and finish up so much more of the plot.

Just remember, it's one of the first quotes in the game, "Stephen King said it best... explanations aren't always necessary... and they are counterproductive to the journey" or something like that. I paraphrased.

And I'm not following the "stubbing" reference. What is that? out of curiosity.

[SSSZmeY]

When Zane realized that the thing he brought back isn't his love, he tried to kill it without success and even cut out its heart. You can hear this scene just after Alan's made up dialogue with wife. Though it's also likely messed up and implies that Zane was just insane.

[EpicFakeName]

I finished Alan Wake back in april and i was playing a lot of Control lately. I learned in that game that Control happen in the same universe as in Alan Wake and the next DLC will explain a lot of the ending of Alan Wake. Until this comes out, im just starting The Signal as of this morning and will play The Writer next. Cant wait for the AWE Control DLC!

I suggest plyaying Control if you are a fan of Alan Wake ;)

[Biofluorescent Meatball]

Автор сообщения: EpicFakeName

I finished Alan Wake back in april and i was playing a lot of Control lately. I learned in that game that Control happen in the same universe as in Alan Wake and the next DLC will explain a lot of the ending of Alan Wake. Until this comes out, im just starting The Signal as of this morning and will play The Writer next. Cant wait for the AWE Control DLC!

I suggest plyaying Control if you are a fan of Alan Wake ;)

wait this just blew my mind

[Biofluorescent Meatball]

ok so i finally played the 2 extra episodes and things indeed make much more sense now.
i had a lot of confusion by following the main story..
Right now i feel like i have been following the representation of the character he wrote.
not the real him. all this time, Alan has been an imaginary written character who happens to be a writer himself. Kind of inception, trapped in imagination within imagination. Does this make sense?

[RCMidas]

Pretty much. The story of Alan Wake is very much a recursive meta-narrative. The worst part is, even though the Alan Wake we've been playing as is a character in a horror story, he is also the person who wrote that horror story whilst being influenced by the Dark Presence. This force, entity, whatever, seeks to escape its prison and enter the real world fully - this can be done by an act of creativity (painting {the artist at the madhouse}, writing {Tom Zane, Alan Wake}, music {the Anderson brothers}) which has been empowered by it remotely.

The 'real' Alan Wake managed to understand just enough of this to write himself into the story, giving him a chance to prevent that original ending. Of course, it's still a horror story, which means it must obey the laws of horror stories - stuff can and will go awfully wrong. In this case, the 'real' Alan Wake has become the character of himself that he wrote, and he is trapped along with the Dark Presence.

The fun REALLY starts when you begin to wonder whether or not the 'real' Alan Wake made up Tom Zane in order to help him, whether or not Tom Zane wrote this story and thus made up the 'real' Alan Wake who then wrote himself into a horror story, and/or which of these things came first. Recursive meta-narrative. It's turtles all the way down. A mind-frak. Call it what you will.

[EbonHawk]

That was well-written, RCMidas.

However, as much as I think the last option may be possible, I fully believe that it's somewhat (mostly) "linear" and Thomas Zane came before Alan. I don't think the writers will go that deep as to have real (or literary) Alan be Zane's creator. I just don't. But I could be wrong, and it just remains to be seen. Fun to speculate though.