- Publisher: Blumhouse Games
- Release Date: Dec 2, 2025
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
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Dec 2, 2025Cliché as it may sound, Sleep Awake is not meant for everybody. EYES OUT's deliberate obscure approach to this psychedelic walking sim was meant to draw in the curious and open-minded crowd, treating those who dare to stay awake to mindboggling lore and hallucinogenic FMV sequences. Just make sure to pay attention to the details, since skipping on that might leave you with more questions than answers.
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Dec 2, 2025SLEEP 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.
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Dec 2, 2025My 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.
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Dec 2, 2025Admittedly, 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.