Unveiling the Mysteries of Alan Wake 2 in Our First Post

Hello, I'm Adam. I created this blog, DriftyTunes, to analyze different aspects of music that you might not realize you listen to, such as music in Video games or movies. I will be posting the blog dail

y, so be sure to watch for it! The first piece of music we will examine is the music that plays between chapters in Alan Wake 2. The music made here is a masterpiece, but most players skip it to advance to the next chapter, and I can't blame them. The music can sometimes start slow and seem like it's nothing, but if you stay with it, it's a whole new chapter in itself. There are 7 of these amazing music singles that the artists created, and now, since I haven't played the whole game, I only know a couple. "Follow Me Into The Dark'' and "Wide Awake". When I heard these music pieces, I felt like I had discovered a whole new world, other than the two already in Alan Wake. "Follow Me Into The Dark" was especially inspiring to me, as it stood out with its lyrics and use of beats, tunes, and the song's aesthetic. However, I thought it was a one-hit wonder, but after I heard "Wide Awake," I realized the artist had collaborated with the whole chapter soundtrack. And it's not just the chapter songs that were good; the background songs were also amazing! But what tops it all is "Herald of Darkness," the fact that for a virtual video game, they added a 10-30 minute section filled with professional choreography was so surprising, especially since it was great. Hearing some great audio is one thing, especially in a video game. Still, they added a new dimension with the choreography, which enhanced the gaming experience by providing an experience like no other, real life. That can't be topped! Alan Wake 2 was ahead of its time by decades, making even the best computers crash under max settings, even with updated 2025 computers. Alan Wake 2 revolutionized the entire game industry by making a true fourth wall break. The music was also unlike anything else, not only in the musical game industry, but also in the ultra-music industry, where the Game Awards announced Alan Wake 2: The Original Score as the "Best Score." It had an estimated 118 million streams, which is a lot, especially for a video game. Along with that, "Herald of Darkness" has millions of views (estimated to be over 15 million). In total, at the Game Awards, Alan Wake 2 earned three awards: "The Game Award for Best Art Direction", "The Game Award for Best Game Direction", and "The Game Award for Best Narrative". The game also earned two other awards, which were: "BAFTA Games Award for Audio Achievement", and "BAFTA Games Award for Artistic Achievement. The game has also been crowned the "Best Game in History" with a 92% on Google.

This game was exceptional, particularly in terms of its video game soundtrack. But how did they make the soundtracks? Well, all the songs were created by Alan Wake and one to two other artists, each with their respective songs. The artists in order are: Rakel, Jaimes, Mougleta, Jean Castel, Paleface Swiss, ROOS + BERG, and finally, Keira. The process of creating the soundtrack was diverse and broke records. Before we delve into the major aspects of the creation, we must first explore Composer PetriAlanko's visions and methods for the initial part of the creation, where he developed the Wild Sonic Toolkit. Now, unlike the first game's string-heavy score, Alanko himself recorded woodwinds, brass, processed trombones, and metallic tones to evoke one of the main environments, "Dark Place."

Secondly, Alanko spent thousands of hours creating impulse responses and sound effects, such as the sound of metal being hit, for the game. Then fed into programs like Logic's Space Designer and Zynaptiq Wormhole to create the meshes for the game. For the plugins, Alanko used around 700-2000, picking out all the unique sonic effects. Pitch-shifting and spectral warping were all in his toolkit.

Thirdly, Alanko created mental maps for each place: Dark Place, Bright Falls, and Saga's Reality. He used sounds to create horror and melodic sounds for that eerie feeling. He also had to create music that reflected Alan in the real world, as well as Alan in the Dark Place and Saga, and combining all three layers resulted in a beautiful soundtrack, which is what we know as Alan Wake 2. Now, at the end of Alanko's solo path, he created submerged metallic sounds to evoke the audience's sense of Alan's pain of being stuck in the Dark Place for over 13 years.

Along with this, Alanko secretly flew about 20 artists to Finland, where the mission, to create the chapter songs, was revealed to them only upon arrival. Together, they produced 23 demos, and seven were chosen as the official chapter songs. Now, for the episodes, the music wouldn't be complete without Sam Lake's poetry. He made the music fit the vibe perfectly, guiding the mood to the songs, which made it perfect. Dark, evocative poems were his strong suits. Now, all the musicians had minimal restrictions, so they were free to create the music they thought best suited for the game. This ultimately ended in the best possible way, with all their quirky, creative approaches culminating in this masterpiece of singles and soundtracks. The music does its job of making sure you feel watched, like Alan did. It feels nice but eerie at the same time. Now, 12 years before the game came out, Alanko started working on the score for Alan Wake 2, which means that (including the time it took to develop Red Dead Redemption 2) the score for Alan Wake 2 took twice the time it's taking GTA 6 to come out (they started full development of GTA 6 after Red Dead Redemption 2 which was six years ago). And this was just the score. Consider what it would be like if we were to get an Alan Wake 3. Now, even though 90% of the music was new, Alanko still reused some demo themes from 2004. Now, in total, there were 7 hours and 14 minutes worth of music created, about 6 hours and 33 minutes of that music was actually used. (That does not include radio shows, in-game bands, eg, Old Gods of Asgard and a 15-minute rock opera scene). Now, all this work was received very well in the world of criticism, but personally, I think the game should've won more awards. Now, for this first post, that's it. Read tomorrow to learn about the deaf game "Modern Warfare 3," which had absolutely no music and even when there was music, it was horrible. Learn why tomorrow! See you all next time on DriftyTunes.