The mere names of Corey Davis, game director of Spec Ops: The Line, and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck made Sleep Awake a notable project. This team’s experimental psychedelic horror looked promising, and its appeal was heightened by the concept of a world in which sleep is tantamount to death. The game truly stands out for its atmosphere and presentation, but as the game progresses, the question of how much its ambition is backed by its content becomes increasingly pressing.
Chronicles of a Sleepless World
The world of Sleep Awake has experienced a catastrophe, after which sleep ceased to be a natural part of human life. Anyone entering the delta phase, deep sleep, disappears forever.
What exactly happens to those who fall asleep, no one really knows. In the place of the vanished, a so-called void shadow remains—an echo that allows one to hear the person’s final words and thoughts before disappearing. Some consider this a form of death, others speak of a transition to another state, and still others see it as divine punishment or a harvest of the “chosen ones” for a higher purpose. Whatever the case, the main rule here is crystal clear: no more sleep.
The action takes place in the city of Crash—the last stronghold of civilization, if that word can even be applied. In the middle of the desert, it resembles both ruins and slums, where familiar social structures have long since disintegrated, giving way to sects and gangs. Formal authority over the city is held by the paramilitary organization ODT—the Order of Delta Transport—but beatings, purges, and the evacuation of people to special centers are hardly a humane way to deal with the crisis.
Other groups employ their own, sometimes radical, methods of combating sleep. The “Pain Eaters” seek refuge in self-torture, the “Mechanics” use electric shocks to simulate the delta phase, and the main character, Katya, is one of those who rely on pseudoscientific herbal infusions prepared through occult rituals—the price they pay is a distorted perception of reality.
The game begins in her apartment, which feels less like a home than a refuge and a laboratory combined. A still, jars, bundles of plants and mushrooms, pots, mini-greenhouses, books, notes, and a perpetually buzzing alarm clock, standing guard in case Katya’s consciousness decides to shut down.
The initial task seems simple—to prepare anti-drowsiness eye drops for an elderly woman named Amma. But fatigue takes over: at some point, consciousness slips away, and Katya falls asleep while working. Here, the player first encounters Fathom—an intermediate state between sleep and reality, where space shifts and distorts uncontrollably.
One second Katya is standing in front of a lighthouse in the desert, the next she’s on an airstrip, then on a railroad. In this elusive world, she meets a mysterious woman named Het, who calls herself a guide. The game chooses not to explain her true identity, and only later do isolated hints begin to piece together a more coherent picture.
The return to reality is abrupt—the alarm clock literally jerks Katya back, and the apartment regains its familiar outlines. The Fathom crumbles, leaving behind anxiety and a feeling of instability. Having finished preparing the solution, Katya buries it in her own blood—so she can get to Amma and stay awake on the way.
The screen is filled with kaleidoscopic effects, feverish FMV sequences, and abstract imagery—a byproduct of staying awake at all costs. These techniques not only convey the player’s state of consciousness but also allow the game to stitch together different environments, instantly transporting the heroine from one location to another. When the visions dissipate, Katya finds herself back on the streets of Crash.
From the very first minutes, the city plunges you into an oppressive atmosphere. A child’s cry can be heard in the distance, strange noises can be heard, and the sound of riot police agents’ batons hitting someone’s back is audible. Destruction, darkness, and suffering are everywhere. This world is simultaneously frightening and captivating in its believable hopelessness, and exploring it could have been incredibly engaging—if we weren’t faced with a banal “walking simulator.”
Sleepwalking on autopilot
I admit, I’m reluctant to label games as “walking simulators,” and I usually try to emphasize the details that add more weight to the experience than simply moving from point A to point B. But Sleep Awake is one of those games where there’s almost nothing beyond the “walking.”
Technically, the game offers a few familiar elements: hidden object exploration, occasional environmental interactions, conventional puzzles, and fragmented stealth. In practice, however, it all boils down to linear movement along a predetermined route, where it’s almost always clear where the player will go, where they’ll stop, where they’ll look, and when they’ll move on. It’s even more amusing that the developers still hung yellow ribbons along this single path—as if it were even possible to get lost, even though any deviation ends in a dead end.
Even scenes that are supposed to create a sense of interactivity often slow down the pace rather than provide meaningful action. Finding a fuse, opening a door, inserting a key card—that’s almost the entire spectrum of activity. “Puzzles,” to use the word without embarrassment, are solved through direct observation: the desired object is literally right under your nose and, as a rule, highlighted by lighting or other extremely obvious means. Katya regularly verbalizes the next step, reducing the chance of error to zero.
Throughout the entire game, the player is only given the chance to truly think twice—in episodes where they need to find three symbols in a room and arrange them in a specific order. This is the most challenging task the game has to offer, so the word “puzzle” is only appropriate here in quotation marks.
Stealth is a bit better, but it’s still minimal. There are maybe four full-blown stealth segments in the entire game, not counting the moments where it’s enough to simply sneak past one or two enemies. Enemy routes are repetitive, the field of view is limited, and the punishment for mistakes is nominal. In the worst-case scenario, the player is thrown back to the beginning of the segment, forcing them to replay a minute of gameplay. In the best-case scenario, after being spotted, they can simply flee and run to the next autosave point. Even if the enemy catches up, the game resumes after the stealth section.
Of these episodes, only one stands out—in the middle of the campaign, when the player encounters an inverted version of the “Weeping Angels” from Doctor Who. These creatures cannot be approached or looked at, but they move freely around the area and even teleport. If an enemy gets close, the camera automatically focuses on them, even if they’re behind you. If you hold your gaze for a second, the character dies.
The second relatively intense section comes near the very end. Here, Katya faces off against blind monsters using echolocation. She has to hold her breath and avoid the fragments scattered across the floor, but in practice, even these enemies are slow enough to simply run past.
As for the main plot idea—fighting sleep—it has almost no impact on the gameplay. There’s no limited resource of wakefulness. There are no tests to test your reaction when falling asleep. There are no mechanics that would logically follow from the concept. The developers could have forced the player to actively resist sleep, but instead, the heroine suffers from drowsiness only in the story—in strictly scripted moments when the writer needs to transport her to another space.
One might expect the weak gameplay to be compensated for by a strong story, but that doesn’t happen either. The concept of a dreamless world, while possessing considerable potential, ultimately ends up wasted.
Camera on legs
The plot is somewhat captivating—just enough to keep the player going until the end. The problem is, once you get there, you realize the effort was wasted.
The developers seem to deliberately substitute ambiguity for intrigue. The story is fragmented and mysterious, but this mystery proves false and quickly devolves into pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectualism. Katya moves from one location to another, first to deliver Amma’s drops, then in search of yet another way to overcome the threat of sleep. Throughout this journey, the game persistently imbues the events with a sense of significance, creating the illusion of a hidden meaning—one that simply isn’t there.
The lack of a meaningful plot directly impacts the main character. Despite four or five hours spent with Katya, her personality remains on the periphery. She doesn’t develop, doesn’t make meaningful choices, and doesn’t experience any internal transformation. She’s not a character, but a camera on legs—a guide through the world, but not part of it. The game barely cultivates empathy, doesn’t develop character, and the heroine’s emotional reactions are sometimes at odds with the events unfolding. Chronic exhaustion might explain this, but it’s difficult to justify it dramatically.
By the end, the narrative literally peters out. Interest is sustained by inertia, but the plot itself dissolves in a flurry of symbols and visual allusions. The denouement comes abruptly, leaving the feeling of a prologue to something larger, as if the story is just beginning to gather momentum and a massive action sequence spanning dozens of hours should lie ahead. Instead, the credits roll.
Ultimately, Sleep Awake’s main paradox is that the game speaks in metaphors but fails to offer what these metaphors are supposed to conceal. Behind the images, fragments, and visual poetry, a gaping void is revealed, and the final twist completely devalues the concept, reducing it to vulgar science fiction.
Dreams in high definition
Against the backdrop of weak gameplay and a watered-down plot, it’s especially noticeable that Sleep Awake’s visuals are far superior—the game truly manages to impress with its visuals. The locations are varied and carefully constructed, and the scenery is filled with small details that help immerse you in the world. The dilapidated interiors, graffiti, abandoned buildings, dust, and debris create a depressing atmosphere of decay and decline, in which people continue to exist by inertia—until they fall asleep and disappear.
Overall, the visual quality can be considered moderately high. The game makes noticeable use of some standard Unreal Engine assets, and there are also some low-quality textures—for example, on brick walls. However, Sleep Awake rarely creates situations where you have to intentionally look at them closely, so these aren’t particularly noticeable.
In terms of optimization, the game runs smoothly. On a system with an RTX 4070 Super Sleep Awake, it runs at over 110 frames per second at 1440p and maximum settings. However, owners of more modest configurations should be aware that the game doesn’t support modern scaling technologies—neither DLSS nor FSR in any form—so there’s no way to magically boost performance.
Sleep Awake’s sound design deserves special praise. The score, composed by Robin Finck, is truly atmospheric and original. The music perfectly underscores the action: dark industrial motifs, synth lines, and ambient elements weave together into a sonic canvas that alternately oppresses with silence and then explodes in climactic moments. The soundtrack can be minimalist or expressive, yet remains cohesive and never feels monotonous.
All of this deepens the immersion into the unstable state of the world on the brink of sleep and waking life—and simultaneously leads to another depressing thought. Perhaps they should have simply cut all these FMV cutscenes and abstract images into music videos and released them as a Robin Fink album. It’s unlikely that Blumhouse Games, which financed the development, is happy with the peak online count of 98 players on Steam, meaning that even if there was a hidden intention behind this art performance, we’ll likely never know where exactly it was heading.
Diagnosis
Sleep Awake is another example of a game where the concept is far stronger than the execution. The concept of a world where sleep has become a mortal threat is impressive in itself, as it opens up vast scope for gameplay experimentation and a dramatic storyline with philosophical and psychological themes.
However, the developers failed to translate this idea into a working system, and so the expressive psychedelic aesthetic and promising concept are marred by banal game design, in which the mechanics are nominal and the plot lacks dynamics and internal development. The atmosphere works, but it falls short, replacing emotional peaks with spectacular but empty visual tricks.
Over four to five hours, the game offers no deep answers or genuine challenges—after the credits roll, it leaves more questions than satisfaction. Personally, I found it difficult to find a compelling reason to recommend Sleep Awake to anyone, especially at full price. Perhaps only to fans of performance art and arthouse cinema—and even then, it’s a stretch. There’s a short, twenty-minute demo on Steam: you can try it, but keep in mind that the full version ultimately leaves an even weaker impression.
My verdict is simple: even with the discount, I’d seriously consider buying it. You’ll never get back the time you spend on Sleep Awake.
