Ending Explained: Alan Wake 2

Tanim HasanAbu Bakar Karim
By Tanim Hasan Abu Bakar Karim
8 Min Read
Ending Explained: Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 has an ending that leaves players baffled. And it also sets a new DLC or Sequel for the game. Here, we will explain the ending and what it means going forward.

Alan Wake 2 is the sequel to 2010’s Alan Wake. Similar to the game, the story of Alan Wake 2 also takes place after thirteen years. Since the ending of the last game, Alan has been stuck in a dark place, trying to write the perfect story to get himself out of there. We have seen one attempt at this in the spinoff game American Nightmare.

This game picks off right after the previous game. This time around, you will be playing as two different characters: Saga Anderson and Alan Wake. Saga is the newcomer in all this, while Alan is the veteran. The story can become confusing with both their campaign available simultaneously.

In this article, you will be going through the overall story of the game. Then, we will discuss the ending and what it means for the future of the franchise. And since Remedy is building a connected universe, this game can affect it as a whole going forward.

Read More: All Deer Head Locations in Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 Story Explained

Alan Wake 2’s story starts with a murder. Two FBI agents, Saga and Casey, come to the town of Bright Falls to investigate. This is where they encounter the dark presence and its monster. Aided by Alan and his manuscript pages, Saga is able to rescue Alan from the Dark Place.

It seems as if Alan is thrust back into the real world along with Saga after the end of the prologue. Saga didn’t have any idea she had rescued Alan. She doesn’t even know him. That is because Saga rescued him in the future, but Alan was thrust back into the past at this time. Throughout her campaign, she will have to retrace her steps to free him in the future so that he can end up in the past, where she found him at the start of the game.

As for Alan’s campaign, we see him trying to write himself out of the dark place he is trapped in. We go through various attempts by him trying to fix the ending so that he can finally escape this hell called a dark place and failing. However, throughout his escape attempts, he is able to communicate with Saga at various points.

The game has a bit of a unique structure in terms of gameplay. You have to complete the prologue as the game is intended. But after that, you are free to choose Saga or Alan’s campaign and continue that at any time. However, after you are both done with your individual campaigns, the game will go back to its starting format. For the ending section, the game will decide which portion of the two you have to play first.

Building up to the Ending

At the end of the game, you will find out a few things. First of all, Alan’s wife, Alice, is dead. You will find out through the tape recording in his apartment. She apparently took her own life because of Scratch, an evil entity that looks like Alan. Secondly, Scratch was thought to be its own entity that took the form of Alan. But that is not the truth. Scratch is Alan himself, with a dark presence inside him. Third, when Alan was rescued from the Dark Place, the dark presence came with him as it was inside him.

Saga finds out the dark presence is in him, and she, along with Casey, makes a plan to trap Alan in a cage and blast him with light to get rid of the dark presence once and for all. However, even though the plan was successful, it was not destroyed. Instead, the dark presence left Alan’s body and possessed Casey. Then, it trapped both Saga and Alan in a dark place.

What follows is a series of conversations. Saga gets trapped in her mind palace. But she was eventually able to contact Alan in his writer’s room. Working together as co-authors, both of them wrote the perfect ending to the book that is coming true through the dark presence.

Alan Wake 2 Ending

As Saga is figuring out her mind palace, she finds a way to leave it. And after her conversation with Alan, he starts to write the perfect ending they discussed. In this, Alan and Saga both are the heroes. And since it is a horror story, one of the heroes must pay the price to save the others. As Saga leaves the mind palace, she ends up in Alan’s writer’s room along with the clicker. The dark presence in possession of Casey shows up right after.

Credit: Remedy Entertainment

Saga clicks the clicker, and Alan taunts the dark presence to come back to the original host, himself. The dark presence goes back to Alan, and Saga shoots Alan with a bullet of pure light. That seemed like it destroyed both the dark presence and Alan. However, as we will find out soon, it is not true. But for now, Saga, Logan, and Casey are safe, and they were able to escape the dark place.

Tease for Possible Sequel or DLC

After the game ends with Alan getting shot with the bullet of light, we see Alice. Alice got in touch with the FBC and decided to get back into the dark place to help Alan get out along with her. So, when we found out Alice was dead, it was a lie. Alan, even though he seemed like he died, is not dead either. Shortly after Saga escapes, he wakes up with his wound healed. It is theorized that the entity known as Scratch is dead, but Alan survived. However, there is no confirmation of it.

So, at the end of the game, Saga and her crew escape while Alan is back to the basics. But this time, he has his loved one, Alice, to guide him towards escape. The one that will get both of them out of the dark place is called Ascension by Alice. So, it is possible we will get a sequel or a DLC named Ascension, which will finally have our hero escape the dark place with his loved one.

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By Tanim Hasan Guide Writer
Tanim Hasan is a Guide Writer at GameRiv working on various games which consists of mostly new releases. His favourite genre is Hack and Slash, and Souls Like. But he is open to play any game regardless of the genre. So he has experience with most genres of games.
By Abu Bakar Karim Deputy Guide Editor
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AB Karim is the Deputy Editor of the Guide section at GameRiv. With an insatiable love for RPGs and a knack for puns, AB combines his passion for gaming with a professional touch. He has to polish every word with precision; otherwise, he will keep losing health bar. Keep that aside for now, and let's embark on epic quests and unravel mysteries with AB as your trusted guide. Prosst!