Alan Wake's American Nightmare

Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. The game is a downloadable follow-up to its predecessor, Alan Wake, but is not a sequel per se, rather serving as an in-universe spinoff. Critics praised the change of style and tone from the earlier themes of isolation, light versus darkness, and melancholy, utilizing psychological horror tropes, found in Alan Wake to the madcap, Pulp-influenced themes in Alan Wake's American Nightmare, utilizing black comedy tropes. The plot of American Nightmare is framed by the narration of an episode of the fictional TV show, "Night Springs," which follows the style of The Twilight Zone and appeared on television screens throughout the original Alan Wake. The narration explains that Alan is attempting to chase down the "herald of darkness", Mr. Alan, as the "champion of light," has the ability to rewrite reality, and was able to write his escape from Cauldron Lake in Washington. She tells Alan that Scratch was at the motel the night before, and provides Alan with a typewritten page, a way to alter reality to destroy the derrick and stop the foes. Alan follows its instructions, which causes a meteor to collide with an artificial satellite, sending it hurtling towards the ground, where it then collides with the oil derrick. Following clues he found at the motel, along with a set of keys, Alan heads to a nearby observatory. Scratch was very interested in this signal, and Alan surmises that it must contain the key to fighting the darkness.