Sci-fi survival horror ‘Routine’ resurfaces after a decade

Science fiction horror game Routine was originally announced all the way back in 2012 as part of Steam’s canned Greenlight feature. After a long period without any updates, the game has resurfaced at Summer Game Fest 2022 with a new trailer.

The trailer begins with some strange grainy clips to set the scene, which is followed up by the horror cliché of the player walking down a dark corridor aboard what appears to be a dilapidated space station. After spotting a creature at the bottom of an escalator, the character interacts with their Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (CAT) and uses it to turn on the lights. Upon spotting the creature again, the tool is used to observe it through the viewfinder. However, the character is caught and we get a better look at one of Routine’s enemies. You can view the re-reveal trailer below:

The game’s store page states that defending yourself with the CAT should only be done as a last resort. This implies that Routine is more of a survival game in the vein of Alien: Isolation than a game with deep combat mechanics.

In a press release following the release of the trailer, Lunar Software spoke about the studio’s long hiatus during the development of Routine. As the original build of the game was nearing the end of its development, the team wasn’t happy with it and felt it couldn’t be released. Understandably, this brought the developers a lot of anguish. The build of Routine we see in the re-reveal trailer is the result of a restart in production.

Lunar Software partially credits the revival of Routine to indie game publisher Raw Fury who has been supportive in the studio’s rebuilding process.

Regarding the release date, Lunar Software stated: “While we won’t be repeating the mistake of sharing a release date until we’re entirely confident we can hit it, we didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer and felt that it was time to share what we’ve been working on.”

When Routine is released, the plan is for it to be available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Game Pass.

In other news, Devolver Digital has revealed The Plucky Squire – a Toy Story-style adventure game that follows the star of a storybook as he explores the wider world.