There’s a bit early on in Routine where your progress is blocked by a blinking computer terminal demanding your personal ID number. I was stumped; maybe because I’ve been so coddled by modern gaming’s frequent insistence on eradicating all but the most minor of friction points that - without a conspicuous Post-it note secreted in the immediate vicinity, a blatant on-screen objective marker to beckon me onward, or (sigh) a chatty companion ready to spit out the answer four seconds in - I wasn’t sure how to proceed. And then it hit me. Not 20 minutes earlier, I’d explicitly printed out my own ID card and pinned it to my chest - all the game wanted me to do was look down.
I might have been an idiot at that moment, but Routine is a wonderful reminder of how satisfying games can be when they’re not treating you like one. Not that there aren’t plenty of modern games that have faith in their audience. Rather, Routine has a particularly old-school, just-get-on-with-it vibe that feels especially uncommon these days; one it’s tempting to ascribe to its decade-plus time in development hell. Lunar Software, you might recall, first announced Routine back in 2012, before the first-person sci-fi horror succumbed to frequent radio silence and countless delays. But honestly, its hands-off approach feels reminiscent of an even more distant past, and is so deeply embedded in its bones, so intrinsic to its soul, it’s far more likely this is just the old-school spirit Lunar Software always had in mind.
Enjoying this game, it’s got a cracking setting and atmosphere. I really like and appreciate that it makes you think and doesn’t hold your hand.
Game Pass is just wonderful for having games like this on it, well done to the team.
3 Likes
Agreed. The mundane act of finding an elevator access code all by myself gave me a dopamine rush.