The highly-anticipated Alan Wake 2 is slated to launch for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 27 October 2023. Just one week before, developer Remedy Entertainment released a helpful and timely story recap video for both old players who want a refresher on the story of Alan Wake and new players who have never played the original Alan Wake.

It’s understandable, considering that Alan Wake originally released a whopping 13 years ago in 2010. A more recent remastered version launched in 2021.

The Alan Wake story recap video is less than 3 minutes long. It’s impressive how they’ve managed to compress the whole story in a video that short. Still, it’s a helpful video to bring anyone up to speed before playing Alan Wake 2 if they don’t have the time or resources to play or re-play the original Alan Wake beforehand.

Alan Wake 2 is a single-player psychological survival horror experience and the sequel to the 2010 and multiple Game of the Year award-winning original game, Alan Wake. The sequel is built from the ground up to be a true, next-generation experience on PlayStation 5 with stunningly detailed visuals that bring our story, action, and environments to life through Remedy’s Northlight engine.

A string of ritualistic murders threatens Bright Falls, a small-town community surrounded by the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Anderson, an accomplished FBI agent with a reputation for solving impossible cases, arrives to investigate the murders. Soon the events spiral into a nightmare when she discovers pages of a horror story that start to come true around her. Somehow the events seem to lead to Alan Wake, the horror writer who went missing 13 years ago.

Alan Wake, a lost writer trapped in a nightmare beyond our world, writes a story in an attempt to shape the reality around him and escape his prison. With a dark horror hunting him in the Dark Place, Wake is trying to retain his sanity and beat the devil at his own game. The game begins with Anderson coming to investigate the murders in Bright Falls with her veteran fellow agent Alex Casey. After certain events have transpired, fans can play Wake and Anderson’s respective stories in any order they choose. Their journeys echo and foreshadow each other, in this intense atmospheric story, taking players on two separate dark and disturbing paths.

Alan Wake 2 is slated to launch for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC via Epic Games Store on 27 October 2023.

Check out the Alan Wake recap video below: