admin There’s a moment in Routine, a new sci-fi horror game launching on Xbox and PC on December 4, that I won’t forget for a long time.
To explain this moment and why it is burned into my brain would involve spoilers, but suffice it to say, in a game that rarely relies on jump scares, this moment was so perfectly crafted that it caught me completely off guard. So much so that I found my hands shaking a bit. And with no pause button, all I could do in the game was slide into a corner of the room and try to collect myself. So yeah, if you don’t like scary games, Routine ain’t for you.
Routine is a spooky first-person horror game set in an alternate future where humanity made it to the Moon and partially colonized it sometime in the 1980s. This means a lot of the technology you’ll encounter during Routine’s six to seven-hour story feels dated, mechanical, and retro. Old CRTs and ’80s-era computers are everywhere, offering up some Alien Isolation vibes, which I didn’t mind at all.
Buttons and doodads and switches
This retro sci-fi aesthetic includes your trusty Cosmonaut Assistance Tool or CAT, which you acquire right at the start of the game as your character arrives at the now-abandoned moonbase to make repairs.
Part computer, part camera, and part gun, the CAT features switches and modes that must be activated by fumbling around with it. It’s designed to be a clunky way to save your game, unlock doors, and scan equipment. And it makes even something as simple as swapping to a different mode a scary moment where you have to stop looking around and focus on your CAT to find the right switch. It’s one of many ways Routine uses clunky mechanics to add tension.
Routine also hides items and pieces of information in hard-to-reach spots, forcing you to stretch up or bend down using a few extra buttons. Like operating the CAT, this isn’t hard to do, but it does become far trickier to interact with this world using these deliberately clunky methods when a killer robot is quickly approaching.
And yeah, as you might have guessed, you aren’t alone on the moon. Pretty quickly after arriving, killer robots become a problem. They dot the hallways and rooms of the deteriorating moonbase, just waiting to spot you and take chase. And while you can stun them with your CAT, it’s a brief delay and not a viable strategy for survival. Stealth is much more effective, though panic-running to the game’s few safe areas also works, too. Don’t ask me how I know.
Expect the unexpected
The thing is, there’s… more to Routine beyond what I’ve already mentioned. Obstensibly, as seen in all the pre-release gameplay footage of Routine, this is a creepy sci-fi game built around trying to repair a moonbase that features once-docile robots who are now deadly machines determined to find you and snap your neck. That’s not all Routine is, but to spoil any more would be a crime. Just know that the second half of this game ratchets up the horror and goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
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Back-of-the-box quote:
“Moon’s haunted.”
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Developer:
Lunar Software
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Type of game:
Photorealistic first-person sci-fi survival game
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Liked:
Gorgeous graphics, creepy vibes, mechanical controls, wonderful second-half swerve
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Disliked:
Some annoying puzzles, ending is a bit meh
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Platforms:
Xbox Series X/S (played), Xbox One, PC
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Played:
Finished the game’s story in about 6 hours.
I appreciated the swerve that occurs in Routine’s second half. Up until that point, I found Routine to be a solid Alien Isolation-like experience, but nothing too remarkable. But by the end, after it zigs and zags, Routine had fully escaped Isolation’s shadow, becoming its own worthwhile horror game and scared the shit out of me in the process.
And while I can’t say much about the second half, I can gush about Routine’s visuals. This is one of the best-looking video games I’ve played this console generation.
Looks that kill, puzzles that annoy
At times, the derelict environments of Routine look photorealistic. Lighting and texture detail, in particular, are astonishing. At one point, I was hiding and shaking behind a large piece of machinery and spotted a detailed warning label with scratch marks. It almost distracted me from how scared I was at that moment. Almost. What actually ruined the creepy vibes were some of Routine’s annoying puzzles.
Unfortunately, some of these threw me for a loop and led to a lot of random backtracking. The game’s total lack of UI is an immersive choice, but it did lead to some moments where I ran into a brick wall and struggled to move forward. If you play Routine, don’t feel bad if you have to look up a few puzzle solutions. Many of these just get in the way of a truly scary experience.
At least I got to backtrack through some haunting photorealistic environments. These spaces and mundane objects in them provide a perfect backdrop for Routine’s horrific elements. It is genuinely unnerving to be in a hyper-realistic kitchen and turn around to spot an evil robot just a few feet away. And Routine loves to use its environments, which are filled with wonderful sound design as well, to build up tension and dread. There were times when the simple act of moving from one doorway to another felt like the scariest thing I’ve done in a video game. I might not have even been in danger, but I was shook.
Routine was announced over a decade ago at this point. So was it worth the wait? Hard to say, as I wasn’t waiting for it, but I can confirm that a decade after it was first revealed, Routine is a damn fine horror game that stands toe to toe with other heavy hitters of the genre.
