Polygon's Simone de Rochefort explores why so many unsettling video games and other media are set in the Pacific Northwest, a region games such as Alan Wake 2 and Pacific Drive depict as consistently dark, wet and eerie. The video traces this recurring aesthetic and thematic choice back through popular culture, examining what makes the setting so appealing to creators of unsettling stories.

The piece follows the lineage of this trope from Twin Peaks, the seminal television series often credited with cementing the region's eerie reputation in popular culture, through to contemporary games. It also considers how the Pacific Northwest's modern identity as a hub for major tech firms such as Amazon and Microsoft feeds into and complicates its portrayal as an atmospheric backdrop for horror and mystery narratives.