Alan Wake’s American Nightmare Announcement Trailer December 14, 2011

First shown at the Spike VGA Awards this year, here is the full trailer for the next story in the Alan Wake universe.

Its exciting to see where the series is headed.  The character of Mr. Scratch was first introduced towards the end of the first Alan Wake game.  He has the exact same appearance as Alan, and it is said that, “his friends would be meeting him soon.”  Originally, Scratch’s name was not spoken clearly.  When his name was said, a scratch sound effect was played over it, almost like it was being censored by something otherworldly.  When interviewed about him later on the developers made it clear that the name Mr. Scratch was another name for The Devil, teasing just what would be in store for us in future Alan Wake games.  Did anyone else notice that when Alan saw Mr. Scratch on the drive-in screen he almost looked as if he was Max Payne standing over his wife in the prologue of the first Max Payne game?

Well, what we have in store for us looks just fantastic.  It looks like all the gameplay of the original Alan Wake game is intact but we will be seeing just a major expansion of that.  The signature light versus darkness gameplay (a staple of the first game) remains, with Alan using flashlights and flares to harm his enemies before firing on them.  We also see Alan firing his first ever automatic weapon in the trailer.  Since all the weapons in the first game were semi-automatic, this hints that there will be new weapons in this game.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is coming Q1 2012 exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade.  No price has been confirmed yet.