ROUTINE

It’ll take just a few minutes for you to start enjoying ROUTINE, especially if you like games set in space, the chance to go solving strange mysteries, or the odd, non-conformist narrative.

Routine is an acoustic and atmospheric masterpiece that excels in environmental storytelling and psychological horror through liminal spaces. However, its narrow appeal, demanding navigation without maps, and reliance on specific phobias make it a polarizing experience. Essential for horror enthusiasts with patience; potentially frustrating for others seeking traditional gameplay mechanics.

Tasking you with exploring an abandoned lunar base and investigating what happened to it, Routine is a first-person horror game that will have you captivated from beginning to end thanks to its tense atmosphere and engaging puzzles.

ROUTINE is an excellent puzzle-focused first-person horror game that, despite its slow pacing, is able to keep you at the edge of your seat for 10 hours straight, with a tense, rich atmosphere created by wonderful execution of its retro futuristic aesthetic and stunning soundscape that immerses you in its world and gets you listening for the sound of a pin drop to avoid getting caught. It's narrative may be unable to shine through, but at the end of the day it is altogether an interesting game, a game worth playing again, and the game that Alien: Isolation fans should play while we all wait for Alien: Isolation 2.

Routine from developer Lunar Software and Raw Fury is a good space horror game filled with the right amount of intensity and fear, which is complemented by its gameplay elements. The only improvement needed is with the controls.

Routine is a short but intense horror focused on mood over action. Not for everyone, but truly distinctive.

ROUTINE is a blisteringly intense horror game with stunning visuals, suffocating atmosphere, and some of the best audio design you’ll hear in 2025. Its C.A.T. system makes the world deeply immersive and opens the door to unique gameplay moments, even if the game’s intentional obscurity can sometimes frustrate. Still, for anyone craving a fiercely idiosyncratic title that blasts conventional game design straight to the moon, ROUTINE is an absolute treat.

Fostering an all-pervading tension from beginning to end, Routine succeeds as an efficient jolt of sci-fi horror, delivering rich environmental storytelling and complex puzzles. The lack of help might turn some players off, but for those willing to stick with it, you'll find a rewarding and immersive experience.

A scary, atmospheric, and cleverly designed survival horror, whose photorealistic visuals and superb sound design help overcome some occasional frustrations.

If you like slow and deliberate horror then Routine is an absolute must. It’s positively dripping in atmosphere and does a tremendous job of immersing you on this seemingly lost place on the moon. It looks great and offers incredible music and even better sound design. When it comes to the gameplay it is unfortunately rather bland. It does what it does pretty alright but it never reaches the heights it offers in its other elements.

For players who appreciate atmosphere, exploration, and methodical pacing over constant action, Routine offers something distinct. It’s not a game that rushes you. It asks you to slow down, pay attention, and absorb its world.

Routine stands out. It targets a specific aesthetic, a specific vibe, and a specific cadence, and it pulls out every stop to land on those targets. It does so with striking accuracy, making technology that feels real and of this world despite its fiction, simply due to the ways in which you interact with it and use it to solve problems and progress the story. It runs at a slow pace that won’t gel with everyone, and its lack of interest in guiding players is an observable filter as well. But those interested in the hardest of hard sci-fi, the challenge of powerlessness against ever-present threats, and the patience for environmental deduction have six or so hours jam-packed with all that stuff ready for them here. Routine has a niche appeal, but wears it like a badge of honor.

With some very good puzzles, a solid story, and a consistently strong atmosphere, Routine is doing anything but going through the motions. You may not feel over the moon about the stealth elements, but there's not a trace of the protracted development period.