Developer EYES OUT and publisher Blumhouse Games have announced that its psychological horror title, Sleep Awake, will be coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on December 2. The release date was announced alongside a trailer, which you can check out below, and has been developed by a team led by Cory Davis, who has previously worked on Spec Ops: The Line, and Robin Finck, who has worked with industrial rock artist Nine Inch Nails.
Sleep Awake has been described by the developers as a narrative experience that will take players through a psychological horror story with a first-person perspective. The title takes place on Earth with a few humans still remaining alive in the planet’s last known city. The planet has been afflicted by insomnia. Along with this, the few people who do fall asleep tend to inexplicably disappear – a phenomenon known as the HUSH. While humanity is trying to fend of the HUSH through any means necessary – including reckless experiments – players take on the role of Katja.
As Katja, players will have to survive against depraved death cults while they also try their best to stay awake so as to not be afflicted by the HUSH. While the core gameplay will largely revolve around avoiding the minions of these death cults, players will also have to find and solve puzzles to figure out the mysteries behind the world, the HUSH, and the insomnia. Interestingly, the title will make use of full-motion video sequences alongside psychedelic visuals in its effort to blur the “boundaries between reality and imagination.”
The trailer for Sleep Awake shows this off quite well, melding in-game visuals with some full-motion video footage to further heighten the sense of horror and paranoia. As the trailer indicates, Sleep Awake will feature quite a few gruesome sights thanks to the reckless experiments that humanity has been partaking in in its efforts to stay awake.
Along with this, the trailer also shows off the moody and industrial soundtrack of Sleep Awake, which has been handled by Robin Finck. The Nine Inch Nails connection becomes quite obvious, especially in the later moments of the trailer’s events, with snare and bass drums going all-out alongside sounds mimicking industrial machinery to instil the kind of horror that EYES OUT is going for.
Along with this, the developer has also confirmed what kind of hardware will be needed to play Sleep Awake on PC. At minimum, the title will require an AMD Zen 2 or Intel 4th Gen i7 CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia or AMD GPU with 6 GB of dedicated VRAM. To run the title at better visual quality and higher frame rates, the developer reocmmends an AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th Gen CPU, 32 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia or AMD GPU with 8 GB of dedicated VRAM.
The minimum requirements have been noted as supporting gameplay at 1080p and 30 FPS at the Low Quality preset, while the recommended requirements are for either 1440p and 60 FPS, or 4K and 30 FPS at High Quality preset.
