Sleep Awake

SLEEP AWAKE is a game I saw in my email, having never heard of it. I redeemed the key on a whim, and dear lord, am I happy that I did. The four hours I spent in The Crawl as Katja were full of intrigue, some genuine scares, and a hell of a lot of enjoyment.

My favorite thing about Sleep Awake is how it plays with its form as a video game to portray a conflict that isn’t a bad guy or a monster. You can’t just hit “falling asleep will kill you” with a pipe and move on to the next slobbering, gory metaphor for crimes you’ve committed, or zombie, or whatever. This is an internal fight for most of the story, and one that has no visible end. You and Katja start the game fully prepared to just kick the can down the road as long as possible, until the runway’s out and there’s nothing else you can do. That’s no way to live, but at the same time, what can you do in that scenario but live? The death cults are silly, but at the same time, ruminations on how humanity’s self-perceived resilience could work against it. That’s where Sleep Awake really hits. When the monsters do show up it stumbles, and feels more like a normal video game the longer it wades into the Whys and Hows. Not bad for a five-hour rollercoaster.

Admittedly, the game is definitely not for the faint-hearted, who don't like being as powerless as Katja is at the beginning, but if you like exquisite dystopian horror atmosphere, then this is one of the best games in the genre since Alien Isolation, in my opinion. In any case, I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through.

There's a lot of promise to Sleep Awake, which makes its short runtime all the more frustrating. The fusion of visuals, music, and narrative are reminiscent of peak Remedy titles and the inevitable cliffhanger ending definitely leaves me wanting to find out more about Katja’s story. I’ll be listening to that Robin Finck soundtrack in the meantime and crossing my fingers.

Sleep Awake delivers a powerfully unique and experimental psychological horror narrative, crafting an intriguing universe where sleep means death and dreamscapes are impactful. However, its brilliant premise feels largely squandered by clunky, uninspired gameplay mechanics, offering few stimulating puzzles or engaging stealth segments. Despite strong artistic and sound design, the adventure ultimately suffers from underutilized potential.

SLEEP AWAKE is an experience that doesn’t allow itself enough time to become the piece of art it desperately wants to be. It features all the elements of a beautifully intense and unique audio and visual experience, and has a decent story it’s trying to tell, but feels diluted overall by its short runtime. It almost feels like a game that was playing it a bit too safe, even in its experimental style, and it would have benefited from heavier auditory exploration and more content to properly develop its intriguing narrative.

Blumhouse Games continues to drag great ideas down to mediocrity, just as they do in the film industry. If they ever allocate a solid budget for games one day, then we can play something truly great.

The story, meanwhile, is weighed down by needless convolution and stilted dialogue, even if its meditations on breaking the boundaries of human consciousness are admirably ambitious - and novel given that Huxleyian mysticism is well suited to the intimate and changeable perspective of a firstperson videogame. [Issue#419, p.120]

Sleep Awake is a moody and inventive psychological horror game that experiments with storytelling and visual style. While it offers a unique blend of mixed media aesthetics and surreal atmosphere, its gameplay lacks depth and its narrative pacing often stumbles. As Katja navigates a fractured reality where sleep means death, the game’s haunting tone and inventive moments keep players intrigued, even as structure and interaction falter.

Sleep Awake is more of a collection of music videos with beautiful visuals and pleasant sound, presented as a pretentious walking simulator about a dying world. The developers would have been better off stopping there.