When she awoke, she could no longer find the real shoebox either. One day, she dreamed of people in jackets that said “AWE” who came and confiscated the shoebox. She dreamed of a diver and later found a strange shoebox in her house. For Alan Wake, the ARG was a blog from a woman named Sam who wrote on This House of Dreams about strange dreams she had been having in her new home in a town called Ordinary. If you’re unfamiliar with alternate reality games, think of them as mostly-online scavenger hunts that pretend we live in the same world as a media property and can even interact with its characters. Way back in 2012, when no one outside of Remedy knew what its next project would be, Remedy began an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that existed within the Alan Wake universe. It’s these events at which the FBC shudders and where they’re needed the most. AWEs are scenarios where the Astral Plane and its Objects of Power disrupt our world on a grander scale. It also calls Bright Falls and Cauldron Lake “known sites of a recurring AWE” or Altered World Event. More importantly, the same document goes on to mention Alan Wake and even hints that he was once an unwitting member of the Prime Candidate Program, the same program Jesse is revealed to be a part of that surveils people with a curious bond to the Astral Plane. One collectible document explains that these thermoses promise fresh-brewed hot coffee no matter how long ago it was poured. The coffee thermoses are in the general population of certified weird stuff but they’re not so carefully quarantined. They’re still observed and contained by the FBC, but it’s like the difference between being in prison and being in solitary confinement. Unlike Objects of Power, which are the most dangerous items touched by the Astral Plane, Altered Items have been manipulated by the “other side” but don’t seem to pose any unique threats. It’s very likely Remedy didn’t know their purpose at that time either, but nine years later, the studio decided to humorously retcon a reason for their existence: they’re Altered Items. Few could assign them purpose in any way outside of them being perhaps a reference to Twin Peaks, one of the game’s major influences. Over the years, the one variant of Wake pick-ups that never ceases to be chastised are the Oh, Deer Diner coffee thermoses. Like Control’s hero Jesse Faden, Alan Wake was no stranger to collectibles lying all around his world, glimmering for attention.
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