As we enter 2026, when indies are dropping some of the most impactful titles, we now have Blumhouse taking their step into Horror gaming. Now, don’t get me wrong, I adore the work of Jason Blum in films, and titles like Fear the Spotlight have been nice surprises. So then, how about the next step with a title called Sleep Awake.
I will say, the idea is intriguing. People have to stay awake else they disappear in their sleep. Yeah, that’s hitting the right freaky vibes. The story, environment, and ambience of Sleep Awake provides a ravaged dystopia with cyberpunk like buildings and small detail-ridden spaces.
Fix the Flux Capacitor Marty
The best way I can describe the core of Sleep Awake is to an incomplete model set. That Gundam, fancy car, or airplane you had as a kid. The one your parent had to grab an Exacto knife for. You have a strong foundation but it’s incomplete and you are missing pieces.
You can see a semblance of what you are building, but what you see on the instructions do not match what is in your hands. The story, lore, and environment are pieces that are strong independently. As you progress, you can see some pieces are made better than others, and unfortunately it makes your model set a janky plastic napkin.
Why Am I Doing This Again?
The story relies heavily on lore built context, most of it being read pieces or indirectly implied. Although it plays out like a horror movie, it’s a movie in which you are wondering, “what is going on?” The tale is brief one, with tons of walking and getting lost, yet it begins relatively simple.
You fill the shoes of the main character, Katja, in a European flat. You aren’t told much of anything, and the world building takes some meticulous attention to detail to keep up with. You’re introduced to the threat of sleep, and it’s presented in a unique fashion, blood all-over the walls kinda fashion; it’ll often have you wondering if you just ate shrooms and watched a horror movie.
At first it builds tension, but I often asked myself why? What for? What is the point? You never really get to see that and if the intent is to instill fear of the unknown to the player, having them understand what to be afraid of from the get-go would have made a much larger impact.
Beyond the ambiguous set up, I found most of my playthrough consisted of walking from point A to point B while trying to decipher a very easily self-explained puzzle. This would result in tons of time backtracking simply trying to decipher objectives.
For example, there is an objective in the beginning where I could not figure out where to go or what to do, and it resulted in a very frustrating 40-45 minutes of slowly “walking fast” in small spaces.
To Sleep or Not to Sleep? Tis the Question
With the introduction being a bit of a puzzle itself with what it expected me to accomplish, it lacked any true immersion. As I consider immersion to be one of the most important aspects in the horror genre, it made Sleep Awake feel incredibly lackluster overall.
Over the course of my 4 or 5 hour journey, I completed every achievement but can hardly recommend this at full price. For a genre that I live, eat, and breathe-in; I found myself wanting to sleep more than I wanted to continue.
For reference, I played the game on Steam Deck and one thing Blumhouse has down is performance. It played flawlessly.
Thank you so much to Keymailer.io for providing a code. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
