[Preview] Alan, Wake Up!

Last night, Xbox Canada previewed the soon-to-be-released thriller Alan Wake to a lucky few folks here in Toronto.  We were told ahead of time that this build of the game was from January, and since then there had been quite a bit of polish applied and many bugs squashed/re-written, so if we saw any issues they have since likely been corrected.

Alan Wake is a psychological action thriller developed by Remedy Entertainment out of Finland. The story is set around the titular mystery author who has been suffering from a particularly difficult case of writer’s block. To help ease his literary pain, he and his wife go on a vacation to Bright Falls, your typical scenic town nestled between a lake and a mountain range smack dab in the middle of nowhere. When Alan’s wife disappears into the encroaching darkness that suddenly descends upon the town, his stories suddenly come alive and he finds himself battling through his own plot in order to survive while somehow rescuing his wife from the shadows’ grip.

Without giving away too much story and spoiling anything, the game’s main element is utilizing light to battle the darkness.  By shining light upon enemies you are turning what are mere shadows into physical beings that you can actually kill.  The game’s lighting elements look fantastic, and the whole play on light and darkness really comes through in how the environment is designed and how you are lead through levels.

It was especially fitting that the event was yesterday considering that Remedy Entertainment also chose that day to announce that the game had  gone gold.

Alan Wake is out on the Xbox 360 on May 14th in Europe, May 18th in North America and May 27th in Japan.