Routine

Routine (stylized in caps as ROUTINE) is a first person (light-)survival horror game first announced all the way back in 2012 at Gamescom. The project disappeared into development hell until finally resurfacing a decade later to the surprise of those who had been aware of the game (which hadn't included me). The wait probably wasn't worth it and even without it, Routine hasn't much meat to it. The game released few days before my latest Game Pass month was up -- which was plenty of time to beat, and 100%, the around 7-hour experience.

Lust from Beyond

My backlog coincidentally offering next a fitting game for Halloween, it was time to play Lust from Beyond. I wasn't expecting a great experience: I bought the game mostly because I was already invested in the series. On the way to Beyond's release, Movie Games Lunarium put out two shorter, prelude type of deals: Lust from Beyond: Prologue and Lust from Beyond: Scarlet. (Despite being free, they both count towards your Steam achievement stats, curiously enough.)

Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: Rebirth wasn't all that well received, as I recall. I had hoped otherwise after SOMA: it's possible that its brilliant writing was largely thanks to Mikael Hedberg who left Frictional Games after the fact. Epic gave away Rebirth at some point and it's still making its way up on my backlog. Frictional's next game, Amnesia: The Bunker appeared on Game Pass soon after its release -- better-received than Rebirth. I had thought to skip past the backlog to play Rebirth first but because the two games are not connected, I decided otherwise.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Another game I bought from this year's Steam summer sale was SOMA. But before diving into it, I decided to first try Frictional Games' previous title, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which I had gotten couple years back when they were giving it away for free.

Alien: Isolation

In Alien: Isolation you step into the shoes of Amanda Ripley who is looking for traces of her mother, Ellen, 15 years after the events of the first Alien movie. Amanda's investigation leads her to a run-down space station called Sevastopol where the flight recorder of Nostromo has ended up. Since the second movie exists, we already know what is the result of her search. That does not mean there is a lack of excitement in this title, however.