The great thing aboutAlan Wake 2is its replay valuefor collectibles tied to achievementsor just trying to go back and see everything that may have passed you by. During your first Alan Wake 2 playthrough, you’re bound to miss a ton of content and hidden areas the first time around, including spots for weapons.
This can especially be the case if you follow the linear path of the story and ignore the exploration of areas other than the ones featured in the main chapters. You may even discover something new about the game yourself with the areas discussed below.
Updated on June 25, 2025, by Dennis Moiseyev:Even though Alan Wake 2’s environments might feel pretty minimal and the storytelling is very linear, there are still plenty of hidden areas to seek out that come with potential rewards or narrative pay-offs. Not all the areas were covered the first time, so this update now points out the rest of the ones more commonly missed.
12The Lake House
A Hidden Area That Can’t Be Entered… Yet
The Lake House is one of the earliest areas you’re able to potentially miss in the game, right at Return 1 when Saga and Alex Casey are investigating the crime scene of Robert Nightingale’s murder. You’ll mostly be gathering clues within the vicinity of the body, not even needing to venture inside the General Store until the next chapter, which is already right there.
Exploring parts of the surrounding woods of Cauldron Lake will result in some neat finds,like UFO Easter eggs, and Return 2 encourages more exploration of the area. If you go straight through the exit door after Thornton gives you the keys, you’ll miss a closed-off area with an intercom you can dial called the Lake House, an FBC base hinted to be at the center of the Lake House DLC.
Alan Wake 2’s New Game Plus mode, The Final Draft, offers a new manuscriptthat you can collect at the Sheriff Station during Return 6, which elaborates more about a sinister experiment that occurred at the Lake House that led to the disappearance of the Federal Bureau of Control’s Dr. Marmont. His disappearance likely serves as the story premise for the Lake House DLC.
11Cinema Rooftop Supply Briefcase Area
Because Flares, Flashbangs, And Batteries Are All The Theater Concessions Alan Needs
This area is quite easy to disregard once you’re in the thick of it during Initiation 8 - Zane’s Film. When you solve the Angle Lamp puzzle inside the Theater Hall, your next step is to head into the Outside Alley and solve a puzzle to make it to the rooftop, where you’ll find Sheriff Tim Breaker, a save room, and the final Echo you need down a nearby ladder. This is all found where the game leads you to go.
There’s a more hidden area to the other side of this rooftop, which has a toolbox of supplies, and around the corner behind it hides another briefcase with plenty of flares, batteries, shotgun ammo, and a flashbang. However, the rooftop is crawling with Taken enemies and shadowy figures, which can be pretty disorienting, and you might be steered away from checking the other area.
10Initiation 2’s Police Car Billboard Area
Before even entering the subway system to fill out your plot board and complete Initiation 2, you’ll first need to gather another light source to add to your Angel Lamp. The final piece of this puzzle will be the area where a taxi transforms into a police car and sends a large group of Taken your way.
Whether before activating the police car sequence or after, there’s a ladder you can interact with just behind you, which will take you across the Poet’s Cinema billboard to collect some hidden stuff. One of those is a cooler with some resources, and then you also have a Words of Power upgrade you can miss.
There’s a green arrow attached to a red neon-lit sign directing you there, similar to the Mirror Peak Bar in Initiation 5.
9Watery Lighthouse
There Is A Lighthouse Here, Too
In the original Alan Wake, the lighthouse was an essential part of the story, a key location in the first episode and the second DLC, The Writer. It’s not the least bit significant in Alan Wake 2, and you often forget that it’s even there on your map, especially given how not-so-clear it is to get there and the fact that Coffee World, the Trailer Park, and Suomi Hall are all you need to hit in Watery.
you’re able to get through the entire game and then completely forget that you could’ve visited it. Getting inside is yet another process in and of itself since you’ll have to collect all the Cult Stashes to obtain the keys in the final one. But there are some cool rewards, like two new manuscript pages. One of those mentions some interesting lore forIlmo and Jaakko Koskela’s connection to the Cult of the Tree.
8Witchfinder’s Station And Ranger Station
The FBC Also Gets Stations Of Its Own
Similar to the Lighthouse issue, the path leading to the Witchfinder’s Station may not appear as obvious, even though you may pass by the sign when traversing Cauldron Lake. The Ranger Station, on the other hand, will be on your way to Bright Falls from Valhalla Nursing Home, though you can still just as easily get distracted by that gorgeous sunrise and walk right past it.
You might want to consider going back to check out these two areas,as they have significant bits of lore tied to the Federal Bureau of Controland those nursery rhymes you see all throughout the map. There are also more nursery rhyme puzzles and charms to collect while you’re there.
You need to use your screwdriver for the back entrance of the Ranger Station to get inside.
7The Rec Room At Elderwood Palace Lodge
A Room With A Bit Of Remedy Nostalgia
Elderwood Palace Lodge isn’t exactly a maze, but you kind of have no business narrative-wise being around these rooms at the Lodge until Return 8. Even then, you don’t really have time to enter any, since you’re escaping a frenzied mob sent by Scratch.
However, if you wish to spend time exploring while at the lodge, you’ll find something special hidden away in Room 105. It’s a recreational room complete with a pool table, guitar, and an Easter egg arcade cabinet of Remedy’s 1996 Death Rally car combat racing game, which was also previously an Easter egg in Alan Wake’s American Nightmare.
6Mirror Peak Bar’s Shotgun Area In The Dark Place
You’ll Need A Drink After Missing This One
Can you actually survive all of Alan’s chapters in the Dark Place without ever acquiring the shotgun? Yes, a flare gun and revolver can get the survival job done on Story and Normal difficulty, but it’s probably not a good idea to be without it if you’re attempting the game on Hard.
The double-barrel shotgun could be very easy to miss. You’ll be led to a rooftop entrance with a sign pointing to try a new cocktail (with an arrow). It’s easy to dismiss it as just a prop, but it leads you to the Mirror Peak Bar, which has the code for entering the Oceanview Hotel and the shotgun.
Unfortunately, the Mirror Peak Bar area is very dark, out of the way, and uninteresting, and it’s unclear that it’s meant to be important for a puzzle.
To even spot the weapon, you have to get super close to the bar to spot a flickering light behind the counter,which requires your Angel Lamp to solve. You’re likely to ignore the area outright and possibly even forgo the puzzle by searching for the code online, thereby missing out on the shotgun.
5Hunting Rifle Room In The Wellness Center
Does A Hunting Rifle Really Belong There?
Saga has a much bigger arsenal than Alan Wake in her campaign chapters. She has a handgun, a sawed-off shotgun, Sheriff Breaker’s pump-action shotgun, a crossbow, and a hunting rifle. All these weapons are fairly straightforward to collect throughout the story, except for the hunting rifle.
The hunting rifle is locked away in a room in the Wellness Center of the Valhalla Nursing Home, unimportant to the progression, and you might not even know about it if you don’t read a specific email on the security office computer. There’s a door without a knob you can treat as a restricted room and not even think that it’s something you can enter. However, youcanfind the knob, and the hunting rifle awaits inside.
4Room 108 At Elderwood Palace Lodge
A Hidden Guided Tour By A Deer
Across Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2, you’re facedwith a lot of collectibles. We’re talking a whole lot. And if Saga doesn’t pet all the deer heads across Watery and Bright Falls, you’ll completely miss what’s in store for Room 108 in the Elderwood Palace Lodge, located at the end of the hallway.
Collecting all the deer heads will have a deer manifest inside the Lodge and lead Saga into Room 108, where it’s now free to enter. It’s a room decorated with antlers, deer skulls, and a treasure trove of supplies you don’t want to miss out on.
Use this guide for collecting deer headsaround the main regions of Bright Falls, Cauldron Lake, and Watery to ensure you unlock the room.
3Oceanview Hotel’s Room 224 Bathroom
And How Are We To Assume Those Are Breakable, Again?
Just about every room you can explore inside the Oceanview Hotel comes with a bathroom featuring lighting and colors reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. So it’s much to your dismay when an important room like 224, which has a Night Springs teaser playing on the TV and yellow arrows hinting at Words of Power, leads to a dead end.
No, it’s not a glitch (as Alan Wake 2 is prone to many weird ones), and it’s also not textures failing to load. You’re actually supposed to shoot the wooden boards to open your access to the bathroom and get the Words of Power. This isn’t inherent whatsoever since you’ve only been using bolt cutters and screwdrivers for opening locked doors. The only time boards like these have been broken was when a Hammer Taken jumpscares Saga in the Kalevala Knights Workshop or Cynthia’s Overlap.
