Routine: Final Preview – IGN First

As a lover of puzzle games, what could be a better way to enhance my puzzle-solving experience than having scary monsters latching onto my neck and ready to break my neck if I fail to solve their puzzles in time? I love games that keep me on the edge of my seat for hours on end, so Routine was exactly the kind of beautiful yet brutally tense horror experience I'd been looking for. With a very cool '80s techno-lunar setting, the beginning of the story had me interested in seeing more, and I was willing to overlook some things that left me less than impressed during the roughly 90-minute demo, like the fact that the monster that searched for me was as bright as the desk I was hiding behind and under. Whether the story will pay off as its hopeful setting and engaging atmosphere suggests remains to be seen, but I'll definitely be looking more closely at how it develops in the future.

Routine is a horror game where you're forced to run around solving little puzzles while absolutely terrifying monsters prowl the halls and kill you on sight if you fail to avoid their attention – you know, similar to Alien: Isolation or My Neighbors. This has the same strengths and weaknesses as similar games, and you can expect some very tense moments as you manage to solve a puzzle and burst through a door while the bad guys you couldn't possibly hope to kill catch up to you. But you'll also have plenty of situations where you're stuck in a room, waiting for the stupid bad guy to turn around and walk away, leading to many moments where the tension festers into a monotonous waiting game. I really enjoy these long hide-and-seek sequences, even if they occasionally require a bit of waiting, so this is right up my alley.

In this particular case, I found myself on a moon base occupied by killer humanoids, their eyelidless, unblinking eyes looking for me as I repaired various broken power systems and tried to make my way through each area unnoticed. The vibe of this shabby moon base and the 80s techno-aesthetic really suited me, obviously taking inspiration from retro techno-sci-fi worlds like Alien. But Routine also brings a unique sense of humor, with silly arcade games to play in between sweat-inducing horror sequences and cheeky, murderous robot assistants to be found along the way.

This is one of the biggest ways that Routine sets itself apart, as it has the perfect creepy atmosphere, unique retro aesthetic, and tongue-in-cheek jokes in between outright horror, all of which come together in a way that I've never seen before. I'm not quite sure if the story will deliver something worth all the tension and jump scares, but hopefully all this neat world-building will translate into something as awesome as the setting. It definitely piqued my curiosity with some solid environmental storytelling and hints at some mysterious viral disease.

The areas I explored ranged from fairly nondescript metal corridors filled with broken robots and signs of recent catastrophic events, to very neat areas, like an abandoned arcade where crude retro games could be played, and a mall littered with debris. Of course, since the whole thing takes place on a moon base, they take every opportunity to let you admire the beautiful majesty of beautiful Selene. Gotta love that one. I'm a little skeptical that they can manage to make things interesting when you're stranded on a fairly ordinary space station on a barren rock in outer space, but hey, so far so good.

While most of the demo I played involved some fairly digital puzzles, such as finding codes around the world to enter into a keypad to unlock doors, it also had some clever mechanics built around the CAT device provided early in the story. The tool is basically just a handheld camera that can also do things like fire electric bolts at targets in its path. What’s cool, though, is that it evolved as I progressed, like when I unlocked a UV mode called the Ultraview module, which allowed me to see trace amounts of matter like blood, helping me solve some of the station’s more unintuitive puzzles. I've only unlocked two modes, but it's clear that leveling up this bad boy will be your primary way of increasing your abilities, and so far I'm really liking the idea. It will be interesting to see what clever new uses they find for it.

As you level up your cat, read snippets of lore around the space station, and solve puzzles, you'll find yourself almost constantly hunted by extremely violent robots who will chase you on sight, intent on killing you. Of course, this can make even the simplest brainteasers more stressful, as you'll be checking over your shoulder every second or frowning when you hear a robotic voice coming from somewhere nearby. It's not exactly an original premise, but it's certainly a classic of the horror genre that I've come to know and love over the years – and one we could definitely use more of.

One thing that was a bit disappointing, at least when I first got into the story, was that it was so easy to outsmart the rather dim robots that were chasing me that I never actually got killed while playing. They make a lot of noise as they move around electronically, and once you start running away they'll give up the chase because they can't compete with you for speed, and they won't search for you thoroughly if you're hidden in an obvious corner that they haven't bothered to explore yet. What's more, one of the abilities you unlock early on for CAT is a mode in which you can tease the robots chasing you, shortening them by a second or two to buy you the precious time you need to escape, as if that wasn't easy enough already. But that doesn't mean they're no longer intimidating as hell – the robotic screams they emit every now and then give me goosebumps, and the few times they get close without me noticing have me screaming in the opposite direction. They may not actually be very deadly killers (at least early on), but they're still pretty stressful nonetheless.