As creative collaborations go, the combination of Spec Ops: The Line’s Cory Davis and Robin Finck from Nine Inch Nails is as enticing as it gets. When Sleep Awake was first announced, the names involved left me anticipating a thrilling and subversive narrative backed up by a thumping industrial soundtrack. The actual game we got certainly ticks those boxes to some degree, but is it another success story for Blumhouse Games after the excellent Fear The Spotlight?
Developers Eyes Out state on their website that they “believe in a powerful synaesthesia emerging from music, narrative, and interactive experiences,” and this manifesto perfectly explains the nature of Sleep Awake. Mixing traditional first person exploration with surreal live action cutscenes, and with all the action being accompanied by a superbly varied and atmospheric score, Sleep Awake takes the ‘walking simulator’ and makes it far more cinematic in scope and feel. It feels strange that this title hasn’t been released on VR devices to be honest. Regardless, it is essential that you play this through decent headphones if you can.
Sleep Awake takes place in a strange world that has been ravaged by the Hush, a mysterious presence that steals away anybody who falls asleep. The few remaining survivors of this nocturnal apocalypse must find new ways to stay awake by whatever means necessary, but different sects have very different ideas of how to do this. You play as Katja, a young girl who uses combinations of herbs to concoct eyedrops to stave off tiredness whilst other groups prefer pain and/or bodily mutilation to achieve the same goal. Your first actions in the game are to find the herbs around your flat in order to make such a tincture, a tutorial section that works well to immerse you into the game’s world. Once you have made the drops you set out to deliver them to Amma, and then the strangeness really begins.
At times, Sleep Awake is visually stunning with neon drenched skylines and dingy, dilapidated buildings at ground level. Other areas feel a little more repetitive but there isn’t much backtracking so the game is always pushing you forward to see new things. Enemies are present but act as moving obstacles rather than antagonists with their presence mostly restricted to several scripted chase sequences and thankfully short stealth sections. The vibe here is very much that of a walking simulator with occasional horror and puzzles to mix things up.
The narrative in Sleep Awake is mostly relayed through environmental storytelling (and Katja’s frequent monologues in response to said environment) but there are also microfiches to find that reveal some of the backstory and lore of the world. There are also spiritual echoes called void shadows left by some taken by the Hush. Katja is able to tap into these shadows and reveal the trapped memories within. Whilst it is never really explained how she is able to do this, the latter parts of the game point to some kind of family connection to the Hush, a connection that is clearly foreshadowing for future entries in the Sleep Awake universe.
This points to one of the most divisive aspects of the game – it feels very much like the prologue to a greater story and, as such, is quite a short experience. I took my time and found almost every collectable and still didn’t get to the five hour mark.
Let me be clear here, I’m not arguing that games have to meet a minimum number of hours to be considered worthwhile (indeed I’ve given high scores to many shorter and more focused titles) but the story here feels like it stops just as it starts to get going. The pacing within those five hours is a little uneven as so much happens towards the end that the game before it feels more like an opening chapter. I hope that Blumhouse support Eyes Out to continue the story but recent experiences in the world of game development leave me apprehensive.