I was excited when Alan Wake 2 released the information that it would feature a soundtracked created and handpicked for the game. Curated track lists can do as much work to set the atmosphere and allow you to understand characters and their situations as much as instrumental scores can. In Alan Wake 2, the music—specifically, the soundtrack—takes the player on a journey, distilling the story into minutes-long songs that hold emotional weight in their lyrics and arrangements. With the creation of Chapter Songs, Alan Wake 2 uses music to tell its story.
Developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games, Alan Wake 2 and Finland’s biggest music phenomenon, Fried Music, have joined creative forces to produce the Alan Wake 2: Chapter Songs, a compilation of seven unique tracks specially crafted for Alan Wake 2. But the full list of music for Alan Wake 2 actually encompasses 20 songs across your time in the game.
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The more important thing is that once you unlock songs, you can listen to them at any time, as Saga in her Mind Place, her equivalent to the Sherlockian Mind Palace. By using the radio, you can hear radio shows and reports, but you can also flip through songs and feel Alan Wake 2 differently through its music. With an episodic quality, Alan Wake 2 invests heavily in its cinematic quality. With that, the chapters each end with a song. While you can acquire tracks across the games, the ones unlocked by completing each chapter feel special.
The Alan Wake 2: Chapter Songs is a one-of-a-kind, artistic collaboration between Remedy Entertainment’s creative team and Fried Music. All seven tracks in this collection have been created from the ground up by Finland’s leading music producer, Jukka Immonen, alongside Finland’s finest musicians and composers. Every song and lyric is brand-new and specially crafted to fit within the world of Alan Wake 2 in collaboration with the game’s Creative Director, Sam Lake. But the songs are also filled with lore that, once you experience the game, you can find.
The songs from this collection play a significant role in Alan Wake 2’s storytelling and plot. Whether attached to Saga or Alan, each song brings the player through the narrative via a different device. As a game, it is a mixed-medium feat. Alan Wake 2 features the use of live-action segments and images, cinematic structures and film grain, and music to showcase the narrative of the game as well. The developers at Remedy deeply understand the power each medium has and use it to its fullest to create a powerful narrative that moves the audience in vastly different ways.
Alan Wake 2 is a survival horror game, but it’s also a deeply intimate story that uses the psychological aspects of the genre to explore who Alan and Saga are, where they overlap, and how they connect to others. The creation of a curated soundtrack for this game captures that intimacy in a way only music can.
Alan Wake 2’s Complete Track List:
- ‘Follow You Into The Dark’ – RAKEL
- ‘Lost At Sea’ – Jean Castel
- ‘Superhero’ – Mougleta
- ‘Dark, Twisted And Cruel’ – Paleface
- ‘No One Left To Live’ – ROOS+BERG
- ‘Wide Awake’ – Jaimes
- ‘The Happy Song’ – Poets of the Fall
- ‘This Road (AW)’ – Poe
- ‘Yoton Yo (Nightless Night)’ – Martti Suosalo
- ‘Sankarin Tango (Hero’s Tango)’ – Martti Suosalo
- ‘Prayer At The Gate’ – PJ Harvey
- ‘Filth’ – Sami “Haxx” Hakala
- ‘Herald of Darkness’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘Dark Ocean Summoning’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘Anger’s Remorse’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘Heroes And Villains’ – Poets of the Fall
- ‘Take Control’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘Balance Slays The Demon’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘Children of the Elder God’ – Old Gods of Asgard
- ‘The Poet and the Muse’ – Old Gods of Asgard
While there isn’t currently anything announced for streaming (outside the songs on the soundtrack featured in other Remedy titles) or vinyl, I hope we get one soon. Once you’ve played, the ability to revisit the story through its soundtrack is something I know I will most definitely want to experience. At this point, leaving the radio on in the Mind Place while I eat is something I’ve been doing during my playthrough. That said, Remedy has already made the first single of this collection, ‘Follow You Into The Dark’ performed by RAKEL, available to be streamed on Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music, which bodes well for the future of streaming Alan Wake 2 music outside of your console or PC.
Alan Wake 2 is truly a unique experience that uses different mediums to build its mood, emotion, and mystery and create something we haven’t seen before in the gaming industry. Music in Alan Wake 2 is used in interesting ways, making the game stand as an ambitious work of art.
Alan Wake 2 is available now on Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC via the Epic Games Store.
