Sleep Awake, review of an inconclusive psychedelic horror

I approached Sleep Awake with the inevitable skepticism that accompanies every project defined as "art-house horror". On paper, the pedigree of this project is so heavy that it risks crushing the game itself under the weight of expectations: on one side, Cory Davis, the man who with Spec Ops: The Line deconstructed the psyche of the modern soldier (if you haven't played it, do so absolutely); on the other, Robin Finck, guitarist of Nine Inch Nails, a band that has made sonic discomfort an art. When these two universes collide under the aegis of Blumhouse Games, one wonders if ambition doesn't just translate into a pure exercise in style. And Sleep Awake ended up falling precisely under this label.

The game is configured as a first-person narrative adventure with strong horror and psychedelic overtones. More precisely, a walking simulator, which makes the narrative fundamental, as gameplay is generally stripped down in this genre, but also the atmosphere since we are talking about horror. Tension must crawl under the skin, danger must always seem to lurk, anguish ready to strike when one least expects it.

The world around us is a labyrinth of brutalist architecture and neon lights that pulse like visual migraines. The art direction is one of the most fascinating aspects of the production, but also the one that raises the biggest question mark. The developers have created an aesthetic that I would call "nightmare psychedelia": the colors are saturated, acidic, and the environment reacts to Katja's mental state. It is here that skepticism makes itself felt: are we facing an experience that uses visual chaos to mask a weak narrative, or is the narrative itself in need of this mad canvas?

The question arises instinctively because describing the atmosphere is not enough, especially when the "psychedelic" key is overused. A video game lives by its balance between form and function, between the beauty of the nightmare painted on screen and the solidity of the interactions that allow us to experience it. Sleep Awake presents itself as a hallucinated journey into man's most primordial fear, that of darkness and the unknown that awaits us when we close our eyes. But does this ambitious premise, steeped in extreme visions, manage to translate into a satisfying and coherent gaming experience from beginning to end, or does it risk becoming, paradoxically, an art installation that relies solely on its aesthetics?

I spent the last few sleepless nights exploring every alley of La Rovina, fleeing from cultists, and trying to understand what "The Silence" truly is. Now, with a clear mind, it's time to take stock and recognize that Sleep Awake is a lot of form and very little substance.

A narrative that lives only by its premise

We are in the distant future, around 2830, in the last metropolis left on Earth, a claustrophobic and decadent place called "The Ruin". The narrative premise is as simple as it is stressful in its single, terrible rule: to sleep means to die. Or rather, to vanish. An inexplicable phenomenon known as "The Silence" kidnaps anyone who closes their eyes and succumbs to rest, leaving behind only a void and the memory of a nightmare. In this scenario of sleepless apocalypse, we play as Katja, a young woman desperately trying to survive by juggling illegal stimulant drugs and searching for her missing family.

Over the approximately five hours (less if you don't bother looking for collectibles) required to finish the game, the plot not only fails to take off but doesn't really exist. Beyond the little that is premised, you reach the end having understood almost nothing of what happened, what powers Katja eventually develops, why she does so, not even who the antagonist is. Not because they are not seen, we eventually "face" them, but rather because they appear absolutely out of nowhere without any detail or clue having foreshadowed their presence. Katja pushes straight along a path that seems built on justifications to move forward, not on a homogeneous and coherent journey that compels her to do what she does. There is the will to find the family taken by the Silence, agreed, but what this phenomenon is is not really clarified. Creatures appear absolutely randomly for brief sections of the game, almost as if they were there to give the game the horror component it boasts. There is talk of biology, neuroscience, and other fields that come in handy when a narrative grandeur needs to be set up but, inevitably, it collapses the moment solid foundations and an equally robust construction cannot be given to what is happening.

The concept of sleep deprivation is as interesting as it is dangerous, in terms of suspension of disbelief. Since we are indeed in a dystopian future but still in a "human" context, net of the calamity that has struck humanity and the consequent Silence, it is extremely difficult to accept that the protagonist, especially, has no real consequences for her constant lack of sleep. Of course, there are hallucinations, but they are precisely psychedelic moments without head or tail that would like to weigh as a consequence of the extreme conditions she is placed in but hold little weight, especially since the Silence seems to have no effect on her. Or at least, not like on other people, considering she admits to having fallen asleep for a few minutes.

Katja enjoys a certain plot armor, of the kind, however, that hinders the suspension of disbelief. She resists the Silence, somehow, develops powers capable of countering it but they seem to come out of nowhere, she stays on her feet by taking psychotropic substances that are reduced to a drop left in the eye (how this can allow her to still be standing after how long remains a mystery). I realize I'm nitpicking a lot, however, when the narrative is built around these premises, and especially when we are dealing with a walking simulator in which the gameplay cannot bear the weight of the experience, then story and atmosphere must take over, involving the player in the world and context presented.

It doesn't happen here. We are faced with a piling up of unanswered questions, confusion, and a push to continue the game in the hope that something will become clearer, only to arrive at the end more disoriented than we were at the beginning. The use of psychedelic FMV sequences may be impactful, but beyond bringing my mind back to university and watching Koyaanisqatsi (although it's not as hallucinated as Sleep Awake) it adds nothing to the experience. Katja's voice acting itself does not convey the supposed fatigue that a person in her condition should be crushed by: it's a rather neutral tone of voice, which overall contributes to depriving the game of the immersion it should (or would like to) have.

Overly simplified gameplay

It is well known that in walking simulators, gameplay tends not to be the predominant part, and in any case, there are exceptions like the splendid What Remains of Edith Finch, but there's a big difference between not having much weight and being almost non-existent. Again, Sleep Awake falls into the latter category. We have stealth sections of disarming banality, accompanied by AI so stupid that we can easily walk past it without it noticing – in other cases, where a breath-holding mechanic is even introduced, the most effective solution remains to run like lightning towards the objective. There are puzzle-solving moments, also extremely trivial and without any form of lateral thinking, something a game based on sleep deprivation, hallucinations, and latent madness could have allowed. A couple of chase sequences that are neither here nor there, making one wonder why they are even there.

Apart from this, absolutely nothing. You move from one section to another at times with the feeling that there is no continuity, probably to convey Katja's dissociation, but beyond what is described above, and very often repetitive sequences, there is nothing else. Once again, the certainty grows that Sleep Awake wanted to focus everything on form, leaving very little room for substance. Beautiful to look at, albeit limited even in its scenarios, with FMV sequences that could be considered impactful, but absolutely devoid of emotional or ludic involvement. The gameplay sections are almost a price to pay to get to the next part: no real sense of danger, of oppression or anguish for what surrounds us, the fear that should truly grip one's gut at the idea that falling victim to sleep turns into a condemnation is missing.

Even the danger of the introduced factions is diminished; each is determined to defy the Silence in its own way, fighting among themselves but, apart from one, more or less tending to mind their own business. The Pain Eaters are depicted as a cult that inflicts unspeakable pain upon themselves to stay awake, with methodologies and brutality that should send them to their Maker long before the Silence takes them. The Machinists used equally invasive methods, succumbing (none are found alive in the adventure, so I assume they are all dead). Finally, the MDT is the one most depicted as an antagonist because it wants to impose its methods on others, actively hunting the other two factions, however, it is unclear what these methods are for resisting the Silence.

Everything in Sleep Awake seems to be there as a backdrop. Never to involve in the experience, only to serve as a weak ludic framework and an inconclusive narrative context. Thanks to many subpar aspects, from which only the aesthetics are saved, the resulting experience is insipid and incapable of captivating even for a few minutes throughout its short duration.