The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

If you have never played Stanley Parable, you’re in for an excellent ride. Even if you have played it previously, you’re going to find a wealth of new content that has masterfully snuck itself in after several playthroughs, waiting to strike when you’ve all but fallen into your regular routine. Stanley Parable is still a masterclass in narrative storytelling and is absolutely worth revisiting (or visiting for the first time).

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a good update to an already great game. If you have never played this before, now is your chance to experience a truly unique and brilliantly clever game. If you have played the original version before, there is enough new content here to keep you entertained. Just don’t read too much about it before heading in.

The experience of The Stanley Parable is as fresh and unique now as it was almost ten years ago. To make things even better, the new content included with this Ultra Deluxe edition expands the game in new and interesting ways, making it well-worthy of a (re)visit.

Always ingenious, funny and captivating, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is definitely worth lingering over again in 2013's cult experience. Today, it still expands with a level-design that is still clever and surprising. And what a pleasure to rediscover the implacable humor of the narrator.

The Stanley Parable is an extremely worthwhile video game and, I would argue, one of the finest examples of meta-humor (as well as humor in general) in the medium. Just don’t read too much before you play it.

Much like the original version, the Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a cryptic manifesto on game design as much as it is a game in itself, made even more playable with responsive controls on Switch and no noticeable bugs or issues. On stepping out of office 427, you find laughter, existential crises, and moments of pure bewilderment in equal amounts, and you’ll cherish every second.

“NINE OUT OF TEN,” Alex bellowed as he wrote. “A thoroughly enjoyable expansion of an already classic game treated with love, care, and most importantly a meta awareness that pays tribute to everything that made The Stanley Parable so beloved. It may leave a small few questioning more than they’d like, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.” Alex wondered if this small sound bite could be considered a complete review, but he was certain that if he needed to, he could find a way to pad things out.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe has played well with our expectations, creating a meta-narrative that goes beyond and expands on what the original instalment wanted to do in an absurd but masterful way. The less you know about it before you play it, the better.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe has taken me on a rollercoaster of emotions--I'll be scratching my head in confusion one moment and then staring at my TV dumbfounded, my mouth agape in incredulous bemusement the next. As far as I can tell, there's no unifying mystery to solve here; nor is there any sort of indistinguishable moral lesson that the game is asking me to uncover. What is there, however, is an attractive lure for a thought-provoking experience about video games, and how our reception of them has evolved.