[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the ending of Alan Wake 2.]

While some solutions are hinted at by supposedly leaked content from Alan Wake 2's DLC, the leaks are incomplete and rarely provide totally satisfying answers. So even with all the information provided by the base game and the leaked cutscenes, there are still many mysteries left unsolved. These are some of the loose ends Alan Wake 2's DLC should seek to tie up.

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10 How Much Of Alex Casey Is Real?

Is He Human, Or One Of Alan's Characters?

Alan Wake 2 reveals that Alex Casey, the protagonist of Alan's best-selling mystery novels, used to be a real person. Since Cauldron Lake's supernatural power twists imagination into reality, Alan's writing becomes real, causing the real Casey's backstory to align more closely with the fictional one's. As a result, Casey is technically one of his creations, which is why Scratch can't perfectly possess him after the final boss fight of Alan Wake 2. But who was Casey before Alan got his hands on him? Did Alan know who he was, and unwittingly transform him by using his name? Or was it simply a case of coincidence gone wild?

9 Where Does Mr. Scratch Really Come From?

And What Is The Dark Place, Really?

Alan Wake and its sequel present two possible origin stories for their antagonist Scratch: either he was created by Thomas Zane, the filmmaker who disappears into the Dark Place before Alan, or he was given life by the exaggerated rumors spread after Alan's disappearance. It's possible that one, both, or neither of these explanations is actually true. Also, there are many unsolved mysteries around Scratch's domain, the Dark Place. Its nature is influenced by the people trapped in it, but no one knows exactly where it came from. Was it created by Scratch or one of the trapped artists, or is it just an inevitable force of nature?

8 What Does Warlin Door Want?

How Does Mr. Door Relate To Saga?

To call Warlin Door an enigmatic figure would be an understatement. He seems at home in the Dark Place during Alan Wake 2, guiding Alan back to the light through his talk show segments. It's also gradually revealed that Mr. Door has the power to travel between worlds, and in the final chapter, he shares that ability with Saga via a manuscript page of his own. But two things remain unclear: how exactly he gained that power, and how he's embroiled in the rest of the series' events. It's heavily implied that Warlin Door is Saga's missing father, so he may simply be reaching across worlds to protect his daughter.

7 How Much Does The Federal Bureau Of Control Know?

What Do They Plan On Doing About It?

In both Alan Wake 2 and the AWE DLC for the tangentially-related Remedy Entertainment game Control, it's confirmed that an independent government organization called the Federal Bureau of Control has been researching the events in Bright Falls. While Control suggests they've at least determined that these can be classified as Altered World Events, and Cauldron Lake itself as a Threshold to another dimension, it's not clear exactly how deep their knowledge goes. Leaked cutscenes from Alan Wake 2's DLC suggest that FBC researcher Dr. Casper Darling has some kind of plan in place to stop (or at least cover up) the disappearances.

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6 What Happened To Logan?

Does Logan Survive In Alan Wake 2?

Much of Saga's conflict in Alan Wake 2 revolves around her daughter Logan. When she enters Bright Falls, she begins to hear rumblings of an alternate history in which Logan drowned in Cauldron Lake, which she eventually starts to believe. In the final moments of the game, Saga gets a phone call from Logan, but she's never seen picking it up. This seems to imply that Logan is okay, but the only way to know for sure is to hear what Logan has to say. Alan Wake 2 leaks suggest that DLC will reveal the content of this phone call.

5 Who Is Ahti?

Or More Accurately, What Is Ahti?

Ahti is a janitor who appears in both Control and Alan Wake 2. While he's most often seen mopping floors with his headphones in, he occasionally reveals that there's more to him than meets the eye. He gives Jesse important tapes that allow her to through the trials in Control, and quite literally opens interdimensional doors for Alan. It's worth noting that Ahti shares his name with a mythical Finnish hero, and that the FBC classifies him as a supernatural entity. But just what his powers are, and why he's so willing to help Jesse and Alan, remain to be seen.

4 What Is The Bullet Of Light?

Who Put It There For Saga?

As she hurtles toward her final confrontation with Scratch, Saga receives a mysterious phone call instructing her to find a shoebox and take what's inside. The box contains two objects: Alan's Clicker, and a bullet bathed in light. Saga later refers to this as the Bullet of Light, but where exactly did she get that name, who created the bullet, and who put it in the box? One thing is for certain, and that's what the bullet is for: Saga uses it to shoot Scratch, temporarily killing Alan in the process.

3 Who Is The Woman On The Payphone?

Was It Alice, Or Someone Else?

Throughout Alan Wake 2, protagonists Alan and Saga receive a series of helpful messages from a disembodied woman's voice on the other end of a payphone. Whoever she is, she seems to know quite a bit about both characters, their journeys, and the Dark Place in general. There's little evidence to directly hint at her identity, but her knowledge and sympathetic tone suggest she could be Alice, Alan's wife who disappeared into the Dark Place before him. Alice's final message at the end of the game further suggests this.

2 What Does Alice's Final Message Mean?

How Does It Relate To Alan Wake 2's DLC?

In the epilogue of Alan Wake 2, a talking head of Alice appears to deliver a final message: Alice is alive, she's been keeping an eye on Alan, and the two of them are making progress. Alice seems to be implying that the entire Alan Wake series takes place in a time loop, but that they're getting close to unraveling it and ascending out of the Dark Place. However, it's still impossible to say how Alan is able to restart the loop, what they'll have to do in order to ascend, or where Alice is watching all this from. And Alan's final words put a further wrinkle in Alice's advice.

1 What Does Alan Wake 2's Final Line Mean?

"It's Not A Loop, It's A Spiral"

In the final moments of Alan Wake 2, Alan appears to be resurrected by Alice's cryptic final message. Through gasps, he mutters, "It's not a loop, it's a spiral." The game ends immediately after, so there's no chance for explanation. However, it's possible to guess at what Alan means. Unlike a loop, a spiral has a distinct start and end. However, each revolution around a spiral is different from the last, as the concentric circles become smaller and smaller until they converge on a single point.

It would appear Alan is acknowledging both the difference between each instance of the time loop, and the fact that he has a particular end in mind. He may also be referencing the use of spirals in hypnosis, pointing out the psychological manipulation enacted by the Dark Place. Or, he could be toying with a dual meaning of "spiral," which can also be used in a mental health context to refer to a repetitive series of negative thoughts. Since the Dark Place has a decidedly negative effect on the mental health of the characters drawn into it, this would be an apt comparison.

But whatever any of these hints could be implying, it's impossible to say just yet. Alan Wake 2's Final Draft update may begin to unravel the mystery, and the Night Springs and Lake House DLCs planned for 2024 should give it a satisfying ending.