Late last year Alan Wake 2 was officially unveiled to gamers worldwide. Information on the game was initially hard to come by, but its marketing has ramped up in recent months. In one of Alan Wake 2's more recent trailers, it revealed that the famous writer wouldn't be the only character players control. The second character was an FBI agent named Saga Anderson.

Currently, players don't know a lot about Alan Wake 2's Saga Anderson. She was sent to investigate the disappearance of one of the first game's secondary antagonists, Robert Nightingale, alongside Agent Alex Casey. Due to the nature of the games, she will likely have some role in whatever story Wake wrote up for better or worse. Because of this, her role in the plot may feel more unique than Alan's.

RELATED: How Alan Wake 2 Can Improve on the Original's Manuscript Pages

Alan Wake and the Horror Protagonist Problem

Reoccurring horror protagonists in video games tend to share one very common issue. There are only so many horrifying things that a developer can throw at a main character in sequel after sequel before players expect it to just be another day for them. The Resident Evil games typically get around this by turning their protagonists into straight-up action heroes while games like Silent Hill will focus on a new character in each installment. Alan Wake 2 seems to plan to circumvent this by leaning more into the psychological horror aspects.

The Gamescom trailer for Alan Wake 2 showed off more of the gameplay and plot. The story appears to be somewhat similar to that of the previous game, with Alan no longer able to remember what happened or what he was supposed to do. All that he can remember is that he needs to find whatever book he was that he was working on while a doppelganger and other bizarre occurrences impede his progress. However, it does somewhat seem like Saga Anderson's story may be the one that offers the most fresh perspective on the story.

How Saga Anderson Might Offer a Unique Perspective In Alan Wake 2

At the surface level, Saga Anderson appears to be a very typical horror protagonist. She's someone who is an otherwise ordinary person who gets swept into a horror story largely due to circumstances beyond her control. Like the rest of the game, information on Anderson is rather sparse at the moment. However, it is very likely that there is more going on with this character, and she could offer the game a new perspective on things.

One of the big gimmicks of Alan Wake is the manuscript pages. In the first game, it turned out that all the events that happened within the game were things that Wake himself wrote, and effectively controlled the fates of everyone in Bright Falls. The titular character would have to doom many of the town's people in order to ensure that the game's antagonist, The Dark Presence, was defeated.

What Anderson would offer would be the point of view of someone who is being controlled by Wake's narrative and may be aware of it. This particular angle offers all kinds of existential horror possibilities and could show how this sort of thing would affect an otherwise normal person. This would make her story more unique and offer a fresh perspective on the universe while Alan continues the more traditional franchise story.

The marketing for the upcoming game has been more than a bit vague, and it's hard to say what is going on with several of the characters. Alan Wake 2's Alex Casey most likely has a lot going on with him, and it's very likely that Saga will as well. With a new perspective on the plot and a possible victim of Alan's writing, it is very possible that her story will be the more unique of the two.

Alan Wake 2 releases October 27, 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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