What were you doing 13 years ago? If you’re like me, you’d just turned 20 and were continuing to flounder through undergrad trying to figure out what you wanted to major in. If you were Lunar Studios, you were just sitting down to start working on Routine, a sci-fi/survival-horror game that took well over a decade to finally come to fruition.
To be frank, that is a truly mind-boggling amount of time to spend on one single 8-or-9-hour video game, but sometimes, special things simply take time. And Routine, all these years later, absolutely wound up being a game that earned the title of “special,” and then some.
I’m actually not sure that I’ve ever played a game so incredibly immersive, intriguing, rewarding, and horrifying all at the same time. This is a title that’ll take a couple of hours before it truly reveals itself to you, and believe me, you’re going to want to stick around for the action aboard this deeply unsettling lunar base.
A Masterclass In Liminal Space
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how Routine actually works, we need to discuss how this game looks and feels, and the atmosphere it’s able to craft as a result. From the second the game starts until the credits eventually roll, Routine is haunting liminal space after liminal space packed inside of a derelict base on the moon where. . . something has gone wrong.
I’m actually not sure that I’ve ever played a game so incredibly immersive, intriguing, rewarding, and horrifying all at the same time.
As you snap awake in your living quarters and start to get your bearings as a junior software engineer tasked with finding system anomalies, an overwhelming sense of isolation starts to creep in immediately. You’re completely alone. Well, you’re at least alone in your humanity. The rest of the crew on the base is nowhere to be found, and instead, you’re cohabiting your surroundings with a collection of patrolling, haywire robots that seem to think it’s best that you’re not around anymore.
The insanely unnerving setting that Routine fosters combined with the threat of something dangerous just through your next doorway results in a sci-fi/horror vibe that I haven’t really felt since the first time I watched 1979’s original Alien movie. This time period is apt as well, because Routine is set in an alternate-reality version of what people thought the future would look like in the ’80s. This style works tremendously.
As things progress, you’ll learn more about what’s really going on here on this seemingly abandoned lunar base. Of course, I won’t spoil it for you, but I was on the edge of my seat as each new story beat and revealed information morsel clued me in more and more as to what was actually happening in Routine.
There’s never any dialogue with NPCs to info-dump knowledge upon you, so you’ll be left to various voice recordings and terminals full of emails to parse through to learn what you can. And parse I did, dear reader. Routine’s world-building is so strong and interesting that I ravenously devoured every tidbit of information the game was willing to give me. The mystery here is magnetic, and I did not want to miss a single thing.
Aside from moments like this, the game is all about environmental storytelling. In a location so compelling as Routine’s, you’ll consistently bump into new hallways, rooms, and spaces via trams and elevators that immerse you fully into what you’re being presented here.
Look Mom, I’m An Astronaut!
Speaking of immersion, there’s never been a game that’s ever trusted me more by thrusting me into the boots of an astronaut on the moon and challenging me to just figure everything out. There’s no HUD in Routine whatsoever. In fact, the only clue on the screen that this isn’t just found-footage from a retro-future spacewalk gone wrong is a tiny little reticle that pops up when you can interact with an object.
As such, you’re left to your own devices to learn the ins and outs of Routine. There’s no map either, and while the game is pretty linear overall, it’s still completely on you to navigate the hallways of the base and figure out where to go next. I don’t always like when games shoot for this level of immersion, but in Routine, it’s so incredibly fitting and pulled off so well.
Aside from learning from terminals and audio logs, the game also ingeniously implements the Cosmonaut Assistance Tool, or C.A.T. for short. With the press of button, you’ll hold the C.A.T. up to your face, physically power it on, and toggle its wireless capabilities to connect to nearby wireless access points, which double as the locations in Routine where you’re allowed to save the game.
The C.A.T. is your weapon, but not an adept one. You’ll have to constantly scavenge batteries for this thing, as each one only allows you three “shots,” which are actually just strong, concentrated beams of light/energy that can stop a pesky robot in its place. Oh, but only momentarily. The C.A.T. never does anything beyond stunning enemies, so don’t think it’s going to allow you to just shoot your way out of trouble.
You’ll pick up upgrades for the C.A.T. along the way, which give you new ways to fundamentally interact with the world, like a black light scanner for finding fingerprints on terminals in order to learn their passcodes to gain access to whatever tasty information tidbits they house.
I don’t always like when games shoot for this level of immersion, but in Routine, it’s so incredibly fitting and pulled off so well.
The C.A.T. also stores useful intel you’ve learned, which can be accessed at wireless access points. This is how you can see your current objective, as well as any useful things like terminal passwords you’ve picked up in an area. Since you can only see this info when you’re at an access point, you may want to start taking physical notes on paper in front of you if you’re like me.
I know keeping notes about a game will be a turnoff for some. For me, this tactile action, combined with just how immersive Routine is designed to be, got me into the headspace of an on-screen avatar more effectively than anything else I’d played in a long, long time.
Rewarding, Puzzling, Terrifying Gameplay
Playing Routine is a bit of an odd experience to fully describe. You’ll navigate through six chapters in the game, each of which involving a healthy dose of stealth/sneaking, sporadic “combat” as a last resort, and simply learning how to think about the lunar base and its functionality in order to figure out how to get to your next cryptic objective.
A lot of this is done by interacting with terminals, recovering their access codes in interesting ways, and powering them on to open new doors, all while never escaping the feeling that you’re being hunted or watched the entire time (and you likely are).
It’s not always easy to figure out what you actually need to do to find the information you need, but this leads to a crazy number of those “Ah ha!” moments where something clicks in your brain, and you figure out a solution that was quite literally in front of you the entire time. It might be a CCTV camera you can access to find a code that someone mentioned in a sticky note or an email three rooms ago. You’re going to have to pay that close of attention here.
Personally, this level of required attention to detail took me some time to settle into, but I’m so glad I stuck with it long enough to train my brain to think about Routine how it wanted me to. Before I knew it, I was so hooked and invested that I was going to truly extreme lengths to solve every new puzzle Routine had for me.
Here’s how deep this can all go – At one point, I needed to use a cipher to decode glyphs I could find with a blacklight in certain photographed locations I’d discovered in a locker. I was taking screenshots of these photographs on my PC, then taking pictures of the screenshots on my real life phone in order to reference the locations I was searching for in real life while sneaking around the corriders of the game.
…a crazy number of those “Ah ha!” moments where something clicks in your brain, and you figure out a solution that was quite literally in front of you the entire time.
All the while, I was also taking more physical notes with paper and pen in order to work out the cipher and come up with a code to input on a device in a bathroom in order to open my next path forward. Working out the code felt amazing, like I was some kind of professional detective, or at least the person who could help you win your friend group’s next escape room outing.
I know this sounds like an intense level of effort needed to progress, but Routine is so ridiculously logical at all times that you really don’t need the craziest amounts of critical thinking in order to find a solution. Still, for the mega nerds out there like me, this is a game that rewards any extra thought you’d like to put into it.
A Bit Too Much Wonk In The Wonder
As truly incredible as I think Routine is on pretty much every single front in terms of world-building, tone, story, and gameplay ideas, there are just a couple of areas where I think it could be improved. The main issue I had with the title was the controls themselves.
To be clear, the game functions incredibly well, but it just doesn’t feel well enough optimized for controller players. You’ll need to use a little cursor to toggle buttons and switches on the C.A.T., as well as to interact with the terminal screens throughout the game. This, clearly, was designed with mouse and keyboard primarily in mind.
This will be fine for some, but for me, I’m much more comfortable and feel infinitely more immersed in a game like Routine with a controller in hand. It’s downright finicky at times to click all the right buttons on a terminal screen, which can be particularly tricky and frustrating in a survival-horror-type experience where botching the “Close Door” button on a terminal can mean you get snatched up by an evil robot even if you should’ve had time to escape.
There are so many moments in Routine that require careful clicking that I, for the first time in my life, adopted a mouse and controller (not keyboard) gameplay style, which felt hilarious, yet somehow fitting for a game that constantly challenged me to find unique solutions throughout the rest of the experience.
There are also just a couple of instances where objectives/solutions in Routine feel slightly too obtuse or particular, which can derail some of the game’s incredible momentum when you do get temporarily stuck a time or two. Of course, most of you will be playing in a world where guides exist for Routine, so it won’t be as large of an issue.
Still, I did have one situation of being stuck for about an hour before realizing the game wanted me to backtrack a bit and interact with a screen I’d never even noticed before in order to trigger what I needed to keep the ball moving forward. I did learn from this experience, but I still think this specific idea could’ve been telegraphed differently to prevent my temporary, frustrating roadblock.
All of that said, these are ultimately minor gripes, but the occasionally wonky-feeling controls were unfortunately enough of a sticking point to prevent me from awarding Routine a perfect 10/10. Regardless, if that’s really my only real complaint about the entire experience, please understand that I still recommend this game highly to anyone who’s ever been into sci-fi, horror, or video games in any capacity. Routine absolutely rules.
Review code provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC.
As crazy as a 13-year dev cycle may be, Routine was more than worth the wait. Over a decade of dedication to the project has resulted in a masterclass of sci-fi survival horror, the likes of which immersed me completely throughout. The liminal vibes are immaculate, the environmental storytelling top-tier, and the sense of existential dread around each and every corner of yet another claustrophobic corridor is palpable. Some wonky controls and a couple instances of stuck momentum are the only minor issues within an otherwise incredible, rewarding, terrifying experience that feels like a love letter to old-school horror games of the past.
The Good
- Absolutely top-tier world-building and vibe
- A game that makes you feel smart as you wrap your mind around how it functions
- A soundscape where every single noise is tuned to be terrifying
- A trippy sci-fi story that would be incredible as a film
- Completely earns and justifies every single scary moment
The Bad
- Some basic control hangups and wonkiness
- An instance or two of feeling totally stuck without satisfying resolution
