Alan Wake – Episode 5: The Clicker – With Behind The Scenes Level Look

Bright Falls has reached the point where nobody can really pretend this is a normal missing-person case anymore. Episode five picks up with Alan and Barry in jail, Nightingale still determined to blame Alan for everything, and Cynthia Weaver becoming increasingly important to whatever is happening around Cauldron Lake.

This ended up being one of the biggest story episodes so far, but it still found plenty of time for indestructible-looking fences, disappearing ammunition, extremely short-lived flares, a badly timed fall and what may be the slowest elevator ever installed.

And once the chapter was finished, we went back outside the normal level boundaries for another look at how Alan Wake’s world is actually put together.

🔦 About the Game

Alan Wake follows best-selling writer Alan Wake after his wife Alice disappears during their trip to Bright Falls. As he searches for her, Alan begins finding pages from a thriller he does not remember writing — and the events described on those pages are becoming real.

A Dark Presence is spreading through Bright Falls, possessing people and turning the darkness itself into a weapon. Alan has to use light to strip that darkness away before he can properly fight back, all while trying to understand how his writing, Thomas Zane and Cauldron Lake fit together.

🌲 Where We Are in the Journey

This is episode five of the playthrough, covering The Truth and taking us from Night Life in Bright Falls into Bright Falls Light & Power.

After the events at the Anderson farm, Alan and Barry have ended up in police custody. We already know Cynthia Weaver is tied to the Old Gods of Asgard song and may be the “Lady of the Light,” so finding her has become our best chance of understanding what Alan needs to do next.

By the end of this episode, we are moving towards the final chapter of the main Alan Wake story, before eventually getting into the two DLC episodes.

⚠️ What Happens in This Episode

Things go wrong almost immediately, although before jumping back into the nightmare there is time to pick apart one of the biggest clues carried over from the previous stream. The Poet and the Muse is becoming increasingly important to the story, with its lyrics pointing toward Cauldron Lake, the strange power it has over creative work and the mysterious “Lady of the Light.” That gives us a destination before Alan has even managed to get out of his cell: find Cynthia Weaver and hope that the apparently crazy woman wandering around Bright Falls with torches knows considerably more than everyone originally assumed.

Alan and Barry begin the episode in jail after the events at the Anderson farm, with FBI agent Nightingale still determined to blame Alan for just about everything happening in Bright Falls. His interrogation does not last long. The Dark Presence attacks the police station and takes Nightingale in front of Sheriff Sarah Breaker, which is a fairly effective way of proving that Alan has not simply spent the last few days inventing increasingly elaborate excuses.

Sarah releases Alan, gives him his equipment back and gets a crash course in the rules of the nightmare: the Taken cannot simply be shot, because their darkness first has to be burned away with light. Cynthia Weaver lives at the old decommissioned power plant and apparently knows how to stop all of this, so Barry is left somewhere relatively safe while Alan and Sarah prepare to head across town. There is also the increasingly suspicious Night Springs connection surrounding Sarah’s family and the list of people who apparently know far more about Bright Falls than they have been letting on.

Actually leaving the police station proves less straightforward.

Bright Falls apparently manufactures its fences from materials stronger than the Dark Presence itself, and the game’s insistence on sending Alan around perfectly climbable obstacles quickly becomes one of the evening’s running jokes. A broken gate requires Alan to make his way over the rooftops because simply climbing, squeezing through or pulling apart the ageing fence is apparently unthinkable. The fact that the police station’s secure gate controls are positioned outside the secure compound does not escape scrutiny either.

Chat naturally decides it could solve the problem faster. asmith501’s now-established “special ear clipping gloves” are declared powerful enough to demolish the fence, while garydsteel offers an alternative method of structural engineering that is probably best left out of the Bright Falls safety manual. From this point onward, every unnecessarily complicated route becomes further evidence that Alan simply is not “putting the effort in.”

Once through, Sarah and Alan start fighting their way across Bright Falls toward the rescue helicopter. The familiar streets are now full of Taken, but there is still plenty of time to stop and look around because apparently imminent supernatural destruction is no reason to ignore environmental storytelling. We find another Night Springs television and settle in for an episode about a man discovering that employment in the service industry can somehow become even more horrifying than expected.

The route also takes us through the bookstore, which naturally means progress stops while the shelves are inspected in considerably more detail than the developers probably anticipated. Alan’s own Alex Casey books are sitting among everything from survival guides to suspiciously placed titles that raise several questions about how this particular bookshop arranges its stock. Even in the middle of Bright Falls collapsing into darkness, there is always time to examine a badly positioned bin, question the local prices and wonder exactly what some of these books are doing beside each other.

Combat is slightly less relaxed. The plan is to preserve ammunition where possible by burning the darkness away and allowing Sarah to finish the Taken, although her ability to actually hit them does not always inspire confidence. At one point I also manage to rediscover that the button I think is dodge is, in fact, the button for wasting a flare. A useful distinction to remember when supplies are limited.

The fighting becomes heavier around the church and the route toward the helicopter. Faster Taken begin closing the distance, health drops frighteningly low and the game’s flares continue their proud tradition of lasting approximately five minutes less than required. One battle has us desperately backing away while trying to keep several enemies under control, conserving shotgun and rifle ammunition for the larger threats and repeatedly discovering that whatever sensible plan existed thirty seconds earlier has already collapsed.

garydsteel eventually sums up the flare situation by describing them as the fastest-burning flares he has ever seen, which feels increasingly accurate as the stream continues.

There is a brief trip beneath the church as well, confirming that I had not completely imagined an underground section after all, although some of the scenery I remembered turns out to belong to one of the later DLC episodes. From there, the final push to the helicopter becomes a proper defence sequence. Sarah prepares the aircraft while Taken attack from around the parking area and rooftops, ammunition disappears at an alarming rate and the entire strategy eventually reduces itself to keeping the darkness back for long enough to escape.

At one point the revolver is empty, enemies are still coming and “run, Wake, run” becomes considerably more practical than pretending we have this situation under control.

Sarah gets the helicopter airborne and heads toward Cynthia’s power plant. For a few minutes things almost look under control. We get a view of the dam ahead, Alan and Sarah have time for some conversation about New York, Alex Casey and Sarah’s father, and there is the slightest possibility that the flight might actually save us a long walk.

Then the birds arrive.

A swarm of possessed birds attacks the helicopter and Sarah is forced away, leaving Alan to continue on foot while she tries to shake them. The crash site Alan eventually discovers is empty, at least avoiding the particularly unpleasant possibility of finding what I described as “mushy bodies,” but it does mean another trek through the darkness while trying to reconnect with everyone.

The approach to the power plant produces some of the roughest combat of the night. Sarah’s helicopter returns to provide support, although there are questions about why the enormous airborne spotlight is not doing considerably more of the actual darkness-burning work for us. The Taken keep coming, flares disappear quickly and a couple of failed attempts turn the encounter into a small death loop before we finally get through it.

Eventually Alan reaches Cynthia Weaver.

Her reaction makes it immediately clear that this is not simply a frightened old woman hiding from the darkness. Cynthia knows exactly who Alan is, knows why he has come and has spent years preparing for this moment. The answer, she explains, is waiting inside the Well-Lit Room at the dam.

Of course, getting there first requires Alan to restore access through the transformer yard.

This leads directly into one of those perfect livestream moments where the timing does all of the work for us. Faced with machinery, switches and moving platforms, I admit that the current puzzle-solving method mostly consists of pushing things and seeing what happens. samwisegamgeelotr responds with the extremely sensible advice: “Nah just randomly push buttons. What could possibly go wrong?”

Seconds later, Alan falls.

happy_cat_lady clips it immediately.

Once the transformer yard stops throwing us into the scenery, Cynthia leads Alan deeper into the power plant and begins explaining what really happened here. Thomas Zane had once tried to use Cauldron Lake’s power to bring Barbara Jagger back. The lake can make art become reality, but it does not necessarily obey the creator’s intentions, and whatever returned wearing Barbara’s face was not the woman Zane had lost.

Zane eventually tried to undo the disaster by writing himself, Barbara and much of his work out of existence. Cynthia was left behind with a different role: keep the lights working, guard what Zane had prepared and wait for the person who would eventually need it. Suddenly her obsession with bulbs, generators and illuminated spaces looks much less like eccentric behaviour and much more like somebody successfully surviving a supernatural disaster for decades.

Before Alan can simply follow her to safety, news arrives that Sarah and Barry’s helicopter has gone down.

Cynthia insists that reaching the Well-Lit Room is more important, but Alan refuses to abandon them and heads back out. Fortunately both have survived, although reuniting with them only starts another long fight toward the dam. There are more birds, more Taken and several encounters where the combination of Alan’s flashlight and Barry’s seemingly endless supply of flares becomes the difference between making progress and being overwhelmed.

This part of the stream also develops an entirely separate battle against the game’s lighting effects. craigdav1d compares the enormous lens flare to something from a J. J. Abrams film, announces that his eyes are burning and eventually holds the lighting responsible for what it is doing to the local fauna. It is difficult to argue with him when half of Bright Falls occasionally disappears behind a wall of artificial sunlight.

Meanwhile, chat manages to introduce another completely unrelated threat: “If you liked it, you should have put a ring on it.” A Bouncy/Marry/Kill result involving happy_cat_lady somehow leads to the song being mentioned, which naturally means it becomes lodged in everyone’s head while we are trying to survive the climb to the dam. Because apparently battling an ancient supernatural presence was not enough to deal with.

The dam itself becomes the episode’s endurance test.

There are swarms of Taken, enemies attacking from multiple directions, the particularly unpleasant fast-moving variety and sections where Alan has to use industrial spotlights to strip away the darkness before following up with gunfire. Some of the faster enemies move so violently around the arena that simply keeping track of them becomes part of the challenge.

Then there is the elevator.

It may be the slowest elevator ever installed anywhere in Bright Falls.

Naturally, the game makes us stand beside it waiting while wave after wave of Taken arrives. Every time it looks as though the lift must surely be close enough, another attack begins and the doors continue their leisurely journey toward becoming useful. Ammunition drops, reloads become increasingly urgent and the whole thing feels suspiciously like the elevator will only arrive once the game is satisfied that we have killed the appropriate number of people.

Even reaching it does not end the climb. There are more routes around the machinery, another section across the top of the dam, more enemies and at least one death followed by the usual moment of working out exactly where the checkpoint has decided to return us. What should be a relatively short journey becomes an elaborate industrial sightseeing tour because, once again, Alan Wake will do almost anything rather than climb a convenient fence.

Eventually, though, Cynthia’s decades of preparation pay off.

Alan finally enters the Well-Lit Room.

The object waiting inside is not some enormous supernatural weapon. It is the Clicker — an old light switch Alan remembers from childhood. When he was frightened by nightmares, his mother gave it to him and told him that it was magical, a light switch belonging to the father he never knew. Alan believed it could protect him from the dark.

Then he discovers the manuscript page describing that memory.

Alan did not write it.

Thomas Zane did.

That changes everything. Somehow Zane had written the Clicker into Alan’s story long before Alan ever came to Bright Falls, turning an ordinary childhood comfort into the “insurance” Cynthia had spent years protecting. The object that once helped a frightened child face the dark is now potentially the one thing capable of confronting the Dark Presence itself.

With the Clicker finally in Alan’s hands, the purpose behind Cynthia’s vigil becomes clear and the story takes another enormous step toward Cauldron Lake. Nightingale is gone, Sarah now understands what Alan is fighting, Barry has survived yet another night that really should have killed him, and Alan finally has something more useful than another flashlight.

The chapter may be finished, but the stream is not.

As has become tradition with this Alan Wake playthrough, we head back into the episode for a behind-the-scenes tour once the story is complete. The normal boundaries come off and we revisit the police station, Bright Falls streets, bookstore, church route, power plant and dam from angles the game never expects the player to see.

That gives us another look at just how much of Alan Wake’s original open-world design still exists beneath the finished game. Roads continue beyond the playable routes, areas connect together across surprisingly large distances and entire sections of scenery appear or disappear depending on which version of the level is currently loaded. Some interiors turn out to be little more than shells from the wrong side, while other locations reveal how cleverly the game uses its geography to make Bright Falls feel like one connected place.

We even return to the dam from outside the level, tracing the route around the elevators, spotlight sections and Well-Lit Room while justanatomy supplies the inevitable collection of “dam” jokes from chat.

By the time the exploration is finished, episode five has taken us from a jail cell in Bright Falls all the way to one of the biggest revelations in the story. After failing fences, questionable police-station security, rapidly evaporating flares, death loops, suicidal platforming, a helicopter that was never going to enjoy a peaceful flight and an elevator determined to operate on its own timetable, Alan finally knows what Thomas Zane left behind for him.

Now he just has to take the Clicker back toward Cauldron Lake and find out whether it can actually end the nightmare.

📺 Watch the Episode

If you want to see the full run through Bright Falls, the power plant, the perfectly timed “what could possibly go wrong?” fall, the Well-Lit Room reveal and the behind-the-scenes level exploration, you can watch the complete episode here:

Watch Alan Wake – Episode 5: The Clicker

You can follow the full playthrough through the Alan Wake Series Playlist and find the rest of my videos and livestreams on the Dr Ravenholm YouTube Channel.

If you enjoy the episode, leave a like, let me know what you thought in the comments and subscribe so you do not miss where the story goes next.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

The edited videos show the journey, but the live streams are where things like the ear-clipping gloves, three-second flares and perfectly timed falls happen in real time.

You can join us live on Twitch or YouTube, get involved in chat and see what happens when the next perfectly straightforward plan inevitably meets Alan Wake’s level design.

We also like to pass the stream on when the night is finished, and this episode ended with the community heading over to vaultdweller32.

🌐 Community & Links

The stream may end, but the conversation usually carries on afterwards. If you want to stay connected between videos and live sessions, you can find everything below.

Live — Come along when the next stream goes live:
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More — There is plenty happening beyond the gaming side as well:
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💡 At Least the Clicker Fits Through the Fence

Episode five gave us one of the biggest pieces of the story so far. Cynthia’s strange behaviour finally has an explanation, Thomas Zane’s plan is becoming clearer and Alan now has the Clicker in his hands.

Next time we should be heading into the final chapter of the main story before moving on to the DLC. After everything Bright Falls has thrown at us so far, I am sure getting back to Cauldron Lake will be completely straightforward.

— Dr Ravenholm