When it announced Alan Wake last month, Remedy Entertainment promised that it would be a "psychological action thriller." Today, the Max Payne developer looked like it was living up to that promise with the release of the second trailer for Wake, which shows a visually detailed game with a tantalizingly dark story.
Available from PS3Portal (click ‘video' above) the second Wake trailer begins like the first, showing off the detailed North-western landscape, which is the game's backdrop. Over a high-angle crane shot reminiscent of the opening sequence of The Shining, a title card appears reading, "Alan Wake was a best-selling horror writer until he lost his muse and love."
This "muse" was Wake's late fiancée and a dead ringer for a woman he meets after "he comes to the small town of Bright Falls to recover and start anew," according to the next title card. "He writes a book inspired by his nightmares," reads the next card over more shots of the very Twin Peaks-like town.
However, the trailer's tranquil tone soon dissipates as the words "But something goes horribly wrong" flash on the screen, an ominous, darkened church appears. "His nightmares start to come true," reads the next card. The next shot of a massive rockslide obliterating a construction site seems to show the effects of one such dream-turned-reality.
Then the trailer gets even darker. "Light is his only ally," says the next title card before a dizzying shot takes the viewer down the side of a hill toward a lighthouse that is connected to the mainland by a dilapidated dock. "When night falls they come for him," reads the shot, which then shows a spooky, sped-up sunset.
Then, a truck pulls into the front yard of a house located on the other end of the dock. A figure that looks like Alan Wake jumps out of the truck and then runs out onto the rickety structure. Leaping over some large holes in slow motion, he reaches a locked iron gate in front of the lighthouse. As Wake struggles with the gate, the sun sets completely, plunging the surrounding area into darkness. As a spooky voice says "Wake," the camera dollies away from Wake to the other end of the dock. Then the trailer's last shot shows a half-dozen figures cloaked in black waiting for him.
Alan Wake is currently being developed for "next-generation consoles and PCs." Neither a publisher nor a release date for the game have been announced.