Sleep Awake Review: A Beautiful Nightmare That Forgot To Be A Game

If you told me the director of Spec Ops: The Line (Cory Davis) and the guitarist from Nine Inch Nails (Robin Finck) were making a game published by Blumhouse, I would assume my brain was about to be melted out of my ears.

Sleep Awake is that game, and it lands in a weird spot between being an interactive industrial metal album and a frustratingly basic walking simulator. You play as Katja, a young woman navigating "The Crush," the last city on Earth. In this place, falling asleep means getting snatched by a shadowy force called "The Hush" due to a cataclysmic event known as "The Swell." It is a killer premise that sets the stage for high-stakes tension, but the execution often feels like you are sleepwalking through a museum of cool ideas that never quite connect.

The Vibes Are Immaculate (And Migraine-Inducing)

Let’s start with the good stuff because when this game hits, it hits hard. The atmosphere is thick enough to choke on. The developers at Eyes Out have utilized a mixed-media approach that blends standard 3D graphics with live-action FMV sequences. It gives the game a distinct, gritty identity that feels like a fever dream you can’t wake up from.

However, this artistic choice comes with a warning label. The transition between gameplay and these "psychedelic" FMV cuts can be jarring, sometimes causing the game to stutter right as the visuals shift. The kaleidoscope effects used to simulate Katja's sleep deprivation are relentless. If you are photosensitive or prone to headaches, this game might literally hurt you. It is a bold aesthetic choice that screams "arthouse horror," but it walks a fine line between "cool" and "uncomfortable."

The audio work is exactly what you would expect from Robin Finck. It relies on resonating frequencies and industrial hums to sell the lore, where sound is a tangible part of the world. Katja can even sing to "Void Shadows", echoes of the dead, to witness their final moments. It is a haunting little touch that works perfectly, even if I honestly wished the soundtrack had a bit more punch to it during the climax.

The Numan Family Business

One of the cooler production details is the casting. Katja is voiced by Persia Numan, the daughter of Gary Numan, who also happens to voice her father in the game. The nepotism actually pays off here. She nails the sarcasm and teenage angst without it feeling forced, and having that real-life connection adds a weird layer of intimacy to the performance.

That said, the writing doesn't always do her justice. For a game dealing with heavy themes like grief and the literal end of the world, Katja has a bad habit of dropping MCU-style quips that deflate the tension. You are wandering through a hellscape where people are tortured to stay awake, and the dialogue sometimes feels too "written" rather than reactive.

Walking, Crouching, and Alchemy

Here is where the dream turns into a bit of a snooze. For a game about the desperate struggle to stay awake, Sleep Awake demands very little actual effort from you. There are no survival mechanics. You don't have to brew coffee or stab yourself with an adrenaline needle to keep a "sleep meter" from filling up. The game decides when you are tired. It is all scripted.

The gameplay loop is painfully rudimentary. You spend a lot of time crouching under tables to avoid dumb AI. You face off against a few enemy types, like the militant "DTM" authoritarian guards who roam the streets, or blind creatures that require you to hold your breath to pass. None of it is challenging. If you find a dark corner, a little UI icon pops up to tell you that you are invisible, and you just wait for the guard to walk his basic patrol route.

The puzzles aren't much better. They mostly consist of finding objects to open doors, tuning radios to specific frequencies, or engaging in light "alchemy" minigames to purify water or snip plants. It feels like busywork designed to pad out the 5-to-7-hour runtime rather than meaningful interaction with the world.

A World of Wasted Potential

The biggest tragedy of Sleep Awake is how fascinating the world is versus how little you interact with it. The lore establishes incredible factions like the "Pain Eaters," who use torture devices to keep themselves awake, and the "Mechanists," who use electrocution.

These are horrifying, brilliant concepts. But you just walk past them. You are a tourist looking at exhibits behind glass. The game sets up this rich, terrifying society in "The Crush," but keeps you on such a linear rail that you never get to dig into it.

This leads to the narrative's biggest flaw: "Prologue Syndrome." The game spends its entire runtime setting up mysteries, introducing these factions, and sending you on a quest to deliver medicine to your grandmother, Amma. Then, right as it feels like the story is about to kick into second gear, the credits roll. It feels like the first act of a much larger game, or a setup for a sequel that we might never get.

Death Is A Doorway

I do have to give credit to one very cool mechanic: death. When you "die" or fall asleep, you aren't just hit with a Game Over screen. You are transported to an endless void where reality reshapes around you as you walk. To respawn, you have to physically find a door in this void and walk back into the world of the living. It doesn't change the gameplay loop much, but as a visual metaphor for Katja's struggle, it is fantastic.

The Verdict

Sleep Awake is a frustrating experience because the potential is screaming at you from every neon-lit corner. It has a killer art style, a great voice cast, and a premise that should be terrifying. But as a video game, it is undercooked. It is too linear, the stealth is dated, and the story ends before it really begins. It is a mood piece that you play for the vibes, but don't expect it to keep you up at night.

6.2/10 - A gorgeous, trippy nightmare that’s unfortunately a bit of a bore to actually play.

We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.

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