Poltergeists or Poltergeist Objects are inanimate objects that have been taken over by the Dark Presence. Most of them attack by flinging themselves at Alan Wake, but Poltergeist vehicles such as Bulldozers would try to run him over.

Poltergeists appear as a common enemy type in Alan Wake and Alan Wake's American Nightmare. They returned in Alan Wake 2, but only as roadblocks and not as an active enemy type, requiring boosted flashlight charges to be cleared.

Possessed vehicles appeared only in Alan Wake.

Info

The possessed Objects frequently appear throughout the game. At the beginning, the only Poltergeists appear as locked gates blocking the way for the player. They don't start directly attacking Alan until Episode 3: Ransom, where a number of pipes comes to life beneath a bridge.

Minor objects

The most common objects are oil drums, car tires, and similar. These can often be "killed" by the time they are ready to attack the first time. Sometimes Alan will also encounter machinery that will turn themselves on, but do no harm.

Bigger Objects

In some situations, you might come across huge cement pipes, or pieces of a train-wreckage. These will require more time to take down.

Giant Objects

In several situations Alan might come across some sort of boss, these are more often than not a rather large vehicle. A poltergeist boss can be indentified by being immune to normal flashlight use, and requiring a boosted light, flares or flashbangs.

There are several notable poltergeist "boss" encounters throughout the game:

Episode 3: Ransom

The first one, a bulldozer, appears in the Train Depot after leaving the bridge. Later on, an old train found in the Gray Peak Gorge Ghost Town, on the way to Mirror Peak, splits into two large pieces which get thrown at Alan.

Episode 4: The Truth

Alan encounters four large pillers while escaping from Cauldron Lake Lodge. Later, a possessed crane comes to life at the entrence to the Anderson Farm, but it is considered more of a mini-boss as it cannot do too much in the way of attacking and can be taken out rather easily.

The second possessed vehicle, a combine harvester, appears inside the farm, in the field near the Anderson household.

Episode 5: The Clicker

A Deerfest parade truck will drive past Alan and Sarah Breaker, but it does not directly attack them.

Episode 6: Departure

On the first bridge, a large crane comes to life. It is stronger and more capable than the previous crane, but is still considered more of a mini-boss. A possessed monster truck attacks Alan in the open field after leaving the bridge, but it's not necessary to defeat it.

Later on, the Dark Presence throws verious upgets like a school bus, a train cart and a ship at Alan on differen occassions, but they're easy to avoid. Finally, another possessed bulldozer will appear when Alan is making his way through Larsen's Auto Salvage.

Special 1: The Signal

The Deerfest parade truck reappears, but this time, it splits into several large pieces which get at Alan as poltergeists. Later on, two possessed monster trucks appear as optional mini-bosses in a certain section.

The final boss of the special is Insane Alan who manifests as a large conglomerate of poltergeist television sets, which Alan must damage by destroying the develision sets with light while avoiding taken and Poltergeists. After the main fight, a boat will fall into the bridge and push Alan towards a possessed gate, forcing him to dispose of the boat quickly.

Trivia

• It was noted by Remedy that the Poltergeists were inspired by an engine physics glitch from the early builds of the game. The glitch caused objects to shudder and to be thrown around unpredictably, wounding the player if they made contact.
• According to the in-game commentery by Remedy, the possessed monster truck was an enemy they tried to add in several times during development without success. Prior to the DLCs, only one ever made it into the final game, as mentioned above.
• As shown in E3 2009, Poltergeists were originally going to turn back into inanimate objects after the darkness inside them was extinguished by light, instead of disappearing.