Sleep Awake Review
The latest title from Blumhouse Games drops players into an unsettling world where sleep kills.
Sleep Awake. Credit: Eyes Out / Blumhouse Games
Developer Eyes Out and publisher Blumhouse Games have created a genuinely unsettling psychedelic horror experience with Sleep Awake, set in a world where falling asleep means vanishing forever. The game prioritizes atmosphere and existential dread over deep gameplay, resulting in a memorable but mechanically thin experience.
In Earth's last city, anyone who sleeps disappears, thanks to a disease known as “The Hush.” Society has fractured into death cults and desperate factions, each developing twisted methods to stay awake. Players take the role of Katja, a young woman whose family is missing, as she navigates the city and tries to survive with the small amount of anti-sleep serum she has made. The serum blurs the line between wakefulness and sleep, blending reality with illusions.
Sleep Awake. Credit: Eyes Out / Blumhouse Games
Environmental storytelling carries the experience. Trippy FMV sequences blur into your exploration of the surreal 3D environments, creating an atmosphere that pulled me in completely. Text logs and visual details flesh out how different groups cope with perpetual wakefulness, from stimulant abuse to ritualistic violence. The slow-burn approach favors the dread of creeping existential horror over jump scares.
Gameplay serves purely as a vehicle for exploration. Walking, stealth sections, and puzzles exist mainly to pace your journey through this nightmare. The stealth sequences, usually my least favorite part of most games, were never frustrating but never particularly engaging, either. This is fundamentally a walking simulator with obstacles, not an action game. It left me wanting to see a film version of this, with a purely artist-directed gaze rather than something interactive, especially since much of the experience feels passive.
Sleep Awake. Credit: Eyes Out / Blumhouse Games
The game’s visual aesthetic—perhaps its greatest strength—impressed me with its design and attention to detail. The bold graphics create a disturbing, nightmarish atmosphere, heightened by the high-quality FMV sequences that blend seamlessly into the experience. Then there’s the audio. The hypnotic ambient soundscapes and unsettling noise designed by Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails heighten the game’s haunting, oppressive quality. Play with headphones.
I appreciate that the horror of Sleep Awake relies on atmosphere and dread rather than straight scares. Players expecting deep gameplay, jumpy horror, or a challenge will be disappointed in the relatively passive interactions of the game’s exploration, stealth, and puzzle focus.
Sleep Awake is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: PS5
