How to Find and Equip Charms in Alan Wake 2

In Alan Wake 2, Saga Anderson’s Charm Bracelet isn’t just a thoughtful gift from her daughter Logan; adding Charms to it can grant players some extremely buffs. Here’s everything you need to know about how to find and equip Charms in Alan Wake 2.

How to Find Charms in Alan Wake 2

When playing as Saga in Alan Wake 2, it’s likely that you opened your inventory at some point and pondered about those strange ornaments to the left of the menu. There’s clearly space for three but only one is present. Reading the item description, it makes it clear that this particular piece of jewellery is a Charm attached to the aptly named Charm Bracelet. Having it equipped provides Saga with a slight boost to her health. This is all very exciting but the obvious next step in this equation is: How do I get more of those beauties?

Related: Can You Escape the Killers in Alan Wake 2’s Prologue, Answered

Charms aren’t scattered about Bright Falls like the batteries and ammo packs you might stumble upon in random cooler boxes. If you want to unlock new Charms you’ll have to use your brain. Nothing too taxing, don’t you worry about that, but there are riddles involved. Fortunately, the rewards for solving these are mechanically beneficial and not just another trophy tucked away in an Extras menu, right Batman?

Firstly, you should know that you only start finding Charms in Alan Wake 2 after successfully killing Nightingale in the Overlay. The first collection is inaccessible at the start of the game due to rampant flooding but defeating the nude Taken drains a bit of Cauldron Lake, opening up some new areas.

Once that’s taken care of, you should keep your eyes open for little picnic spots that seem… odd. There are usually some blankets strewn about the place but there’ll also be a video camera and several tape recorders surrounding a bunch of childish chalk drawings and a note bearing a scrawled rhyme. Nearby, you’ll also likely find a wooden doll that is necessary for cracking the code so make sure you pick it up.

As you’re pouring over the piece of paper, you’ll notice that the various drawings are all interactable and beyond that, they seem to correlate to the story presented in the rhyme.

How to Solve Alan Wake 2’s First Rhyme Riddle

The first rhyme you’re likely to come across while searching for Charms in Alan Wake 2 reads:

One bird for light
Two for darkness
Three birds for a fight
Four for a struggle
Five birds for injury
Six for misery
Seven for the ending
whatever it may be.

Around the poem, you’ll see house, a heart, some waves, a boat and a sun. To successfully solve the riddle, you’ll need to play the correct wooden doll on the picture that represents it in the story. Per the above example, you should have found a single crow doll. “One bird for light,” remember? Place the carving on the sun and the screen should flash with static for a second before Saga comments that something has changed.

Related: Is Alan Wake 2 Digital Only?

Backing away from the page, you should notice a small jewellery box somewhere close by that definitely wasn’t there when you arrived. Inside it, you’ll find new Charms that can be equipped to Saga’s bracelet, each one providing unique bonuses such as increased stagger rates and the ability to revive once after dying at the cost of shattering the item.

How to Equip Charms in Alan Wake 2

To equip these Charms in Alan Wake 2, simply open your inventory, select the one you’d like to slot onto your Bracelet and then drag it over to one of the open slots on the left. You can only have three Charms active at any given moment so I recommend just stashing the ones you aren’t using in the Shoebox in a Break Room to free up some much needed inventory space.

These rhymes are scattered all over Bright Falls with every one incorporating a unique story, drawings and dolls. Tracking them all down will result in Saga building up an extensive collection of Charms which is great news for players who really wished Alan Wake was more like Hollow Knight. The more you uncover, the more you’ll realize that the chalk drawings definitely weren’t left by a child. In fact, they’re all so particular that it’s almost like someone is conducting some thorough tests…

If you’re looking for more, check out where Alan Wake 2 hides its first Control reference.