The twisted world of Alan Wake 2 gets even weirder with this hilarious character glitch. By manipulating loading, it’s possible to put Saga Anderson or Alan Wake in areas they’re not meant to be in. You can send Saga into the Dark Place or move Alan Wake back into Brightfalls. All it takes is some tight timing and two button presses. Even after the latest patch, we’re able to pull off this fun exploit. Sure, you can’t really do anything special with these characters in the wrong world, but you can enjoy exploring where they’re not meant to explore.
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How The Character Glitch Works
With a quick glitch, you can play as Alan Wake in Saga’s Campaign, or Saga in Alan Wake’s Campaign. If you perform the trick correctly, you’ll bring all your items with you and be free to explore the map with either character — and this is an extremely easy trick to pull off. Surprisingly, as of 11/9/23 this glitch still hasn’t been patched. We tested this bug on the Playstation 5 and it is still totally viable. Here’s how it works.
- Alan Wake / Saga Anderson Character Swap Glitch
- To pull off this glitch, you’ll need to use a Break Room with a Switch Reality puddle right next to the Quicksave Coffee. This glitch doesn’t work with every break room.
- Quicksave at the thermos.
- Right after quicksaving, immediately Switch Reality. It should be done almost instantly.
- If the quicksave icon is still spinning after entering another reality, you may get a second save icon. If both are spinning, this glitch most likely has worked.
If the glitch works, your same character will swap to the other reality. Instead of switching characters, you’ll bring one character into the new reality. Saga will appear in the Dark Place, and Alan Wake will appear in Bright Falls. When they appear, they’ll also bring all their inventory. They’ll also still be able to instantly swap to the Mind Place or the Writer’s Room.
After swapping characters, you’ll have access to your alternate character’s Shoe Box with all the items and character-specific gear. Alan Wake can even travel to new locations using the FBI vehicle. When the wrong character is progressing the story, their model will automatically appear at the next playable location, but they will NOT animate during cutscenes. Really, I don’t recommend playing the story with swapped characters — who knows what kinds of issues will appear if you play the wrong character too long.
If you want to try this trick for yourself, here are two locations that we can confirm work.
- Break Room Spots We’ve Tested:
- Elderwood Lodge Break Room: For Saga’s Story, try the Break Room in the center of the Elderwood Lodge. The coffee thermos and the Switch Reality puddle are very close together. You can do this trick accidentally. The timing is VERY TIGHT. You may also need to sprint in from the outside while the area is still loading.
- Dark Place Break Room: The break room in the center of the dark New York city streets is the perfect location for moving Alan Wake into Saga’s world. Moving Alan Wake into Saga’s campaign is much easier to pull off here.
More locations might work. You’ll have to try those out for yourself. This trick probably only works when Alan Wake 2 is installed on an SSD — the transfer happens so far, if you interrupt the loading with a quicksave, it seemingly keeps your current model even after transitioning to the other world. If you wait for the quicksave to complete, or even mostly finish, you’ll swap characters as intended.
This is a cute little oddball glitch that’s worth trying out just for the fun of it. No, there’s no real benefit to doing this. But it is extremely surreal seeing these characters in places they’re not meant to be in.
