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Synopsis

The plot of American Nightmare is framed by the narration of an episode of the fictional TV show "Night Springs", which follows the style of The Twilight Zone and appeared on television screens throughout the original Alan Wake. Alan Wake's friend and manager, Barry, is sleeping in a motel room. The narration explains that Alan is trying to track down the "herald of darkness", Mr. Scratch, who is Alan's evil doppelganger created by a dark force. Scratch is determined to take away everything Alan loves, including his wife, Alice. Alan, as the "Champion of the Light", has the ability to rewrite reality and was able to script his escape from Cauldron Lake to Washington. He ends up near the small town of Night Springs, Arizona, and learns that he has been missing from the real world for almost two years. A nearby oil derrick erupts with several enemies controlled by Mr. Scratch. Searching for light, Alan runs to a nearby motel, where he meets Emma Sloan, who at first thinks he is Mr. Scratch, because they look alike. She tells Alan that Scratch was at the motel the night before and provides Alan with a typewritten page, a means of altering reality to destroy the derrick and stop the enemies. Alan follows his instructions, which causes a meteor to collide with an artificial satellite, sending it towards the ground, where it then collides with the oil derrick. While Alan is away carrying out this task, dark forces consume Emma. Following the clues he found at the motel, as well as a set of keys, Alan heads to a nearby observatory. There, Dr. Rachel Meadows, who also met Mr. Scratch before, tracks a mysterious signal sent just before the satellite was knocked out of orbit. Rachel tells Alan that Mr. Scratch was very interested in this signal, and Alan assumes that it must contain the key to fighting the darkness. As he attempts to obtain the full signal, the observatory's telescope is sabotaged by darkness, strengthening Alan's belief that the signal contains something he needs. After repairing the damage, part of the signal passes and translates into a page of history: a new reality that Alan can probably implement. The page directs him to a nearby drive-in movie theater, where he meets Serena Valdivia, who is under the influence of the darkness. After freeing her by restoring the power and turning on the lights, Serena tells Alan that Mr. Scratch is trying to stop the sun from rising again. She gives Alan the security code to the projection room where he can change reality. Alan uses the incomplete message to try to define the new reality. However, since the message is only partial, the new reality does not take effect. Mr. Scratch appears, gloating, and sends Alan away a few hours ago. Waking up near the motel again, Alan repeats many of the same movements. Emma and Rachel still have some deja vu from the events of the previous loop and helped complete some of Alan's previous tasks for him. Despite her efforts to change events this time, Emma is nevertheless once again consumed by darkness. Rachel is this time able to capture a longer part of the signal, but it is still incomplete. When Alan returns to the drive-in, he is once again unable to complete the new reality and is sent back in time by Mr. Scratch. Alan repeats his actions for the third time, but this time he manages to save Emma and get the full message from Rachel. It sets the correct series of events in the projection room, which triggers the projector to show a film directed by Alice. Mr. Scratch appears again, but discovers that Alan has successfully written the new reality and is exhausted by the film. On screen, Alan appears to find Alice along a sunny shore; however, the narrator notes that this could very well be just a figment of Alan's imagination, since he is still trapped in the dark place. During the credits, it is revealed that the name of the Night Springs episode Alan wrote himself into was titled "Return", a reference to the manuscript he began typing at the end of Special Two: The Writer. After the game's credits end, Barry suddenly wakes up, believing he heard Alan's voice.

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