This is the second part of my Alan Wake II posts. The first explores the way the game uses silence to make players (or at least me) scared.

There’s a moment in the 4th Return chapter: No Chance that stood out as a perfect explanation of how the game uses scarcity to create tension.

For people who don’t play a lot of video games, think of scarcity like this: you have an unknown number of enemies blocking your way to safety, and only 4 bullets. You need to get through the dark maze, but your flashlight is dying, and there are no batteries to be found. You’re unsure how deep the water is, and you only have 1 minute's worth of air.

It’s that feeling you get when you feel particularly underpowered due to your lack of resources or tools. It’s a bit like real life, but instead of lacking insurance or income, you do have what you need to avoid, kill, or seriously maim the 23-eyed monster pushing its way through the cramped hallway you currently find yourself standing in.

This tactic isn’t new to the horror genre. Resident Evil (1996) had a limited number of saves the player could use throughout the game, pretty cuthroat for today’s standards. Other tactics include severely limiting the amount of ammo or health kits players can find.

This makes every shot, healing, and sprint intentional. If I use the health kit now, I’ll be at full health, but I might be able to make it to the infirmary and get patched up for free.

Finite and scarce items make games feel tense, and Alan Wake II pulls this off perfectly.

Return Chapter 4 opens with Alan waking up in what used to be a safe place.

Blood covers the floor, the furniture is toppled, and the deer trophy has intestines hanging on its antlers. Something horrible happened here, and you don’t have any way to defend yourself, but you need to find your way forward.

Upon searching the area, you can find a shotgun, 2 shells, and a flashlight with 3 charges.

You can hear the distant sounds of a trusted person, but darkness blocks the way. In this game, you need to use your flashlight to burn the darkness away. There are some areas with barriers you need to use a charge to burn, and all the enemies need to be hit with a flashlight charge before you can shoot them.

The darkness gate that’s blocking you requires 2 flashlight charges to burn away—one charge left.

As soon as the darkness is burned, an enemy cultist comes barreling out, treetrunk overhead. Use a flashlight charge them—flashlight is dead now. Two shotgun rounds later, and the cultist is still at large.

You now have no ammo, no flashlight charges, and a hulking cultist murderer blocking you from the way forward.

This is not a natural moment that only happened to me. The way you get the flashlight and the shotgun, and the way they give you the perfect amount of items to make this moment happen, is indicative that the developers wanted this to happen.

You can kill the cultist with the 2 shotgun rounds, but you have to land 2 headshots. Something that’s tough when you don’t expect a hulking monster to come running at you.

Many horror games start with a scarce amount of resources, but over time overpowers the player with a buffet of options. The game gets easier to traverse. Therefore, the game gets less scary.

I’m roughly halfway through Alan Wake II, and the scarcity is not letting up. I constantly have to choose between trying to get back to light to heal and using my healing items.

There is a chance that the game will drop the scarcity thing and give me hundreds of items, but I don’t see that happening. That being said, there are DLC “episodes” found throughout the world that lead to alternate universe scenarios that are 1) hilarious and 2) full of resources. I played through one of the other day, and I had like 250 handgun rounds by the end. But that’s not the game-game. Does that make sense?

Alan Wake II does not let up on its commitment to scarcity and using it to pressure players and make them feel alone and helpless.

Expect more on Alan Wake II.