Horror Movie Studio Blumhouse Release New Video Game, Sleep Awake: Out Now
- Blumhouse Games releases Sleep Awake, a psychedelic horror game about surviving The HUSH in Earth’s last city.
- Gameplay mixes FMV, puzzles, and stealth, with reality-warping “waking sleep” sequences.
- It expands Blumhouse’s horror game lineup, joining titles like Fear the Spotlight and Eyes of Hellfire.
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Don’t Sleep
Better known for producing horror movies like the Black Phone and Five Nights at Freddy’s franchises, Blumhouse also has a video game division – the fittingly titled Blumhouse Games. It’s already published two games, and its latest, Sleep Awake, is out now on all major platforms.
Created by Eyes Out, a studio founded by Cory Davis (Spec Ops:The Line) and Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails), Sleep Awake is a psychedelic horror set in the last city on Earth known as The Crush. People are desperately trying to stay awake as those who sleep disappear, taken by a force called The HUSH and no one knows where or why.
“The game follows Katja, a citizen of The Crush who has lost almost all of her loved ones to The HUSH or one of the city’s many other dangers,” Eyes Out said in its official Discord channel. “She must stay awake, survive the devotees of various depraved death cults, and solve the puzzles of this mysterious world to shatter the horrors of the past.”
Live Action Terror
Katja is the daughter of a researcher from the once-renowned Somnological Institute. While different factions use methods like body mutilation or electrocution to stay awake, she relies on eye drops. These work, but can lead to Katja entering a kind of ‘waking sleep’ that sees her transition from one liminal space to another, often in the blink of an eye.
Unsurprisingly for a game linked with Blumhouse, Sleep Awake contains multiple FMV sequences of Katja as she experiences trippy dreamlike sequences, which then bleed over into the game itself. The aura of weirdness is helped by Finck’s music, which veers from industrial soundscapes to full-on guitar skronk.
Eyes Out promises a tense battle for survival that relies on wits rather than combat: threats can’t be fought head on. The player must use problem solving and stealth to outwit and outmaneuver the twisted factions vying for control of The Crush – each cult believes they have the answer to staying awake, although the truth may take the player into the realms of cosmic horror.
Blumhouse Games
Sleep Awake joins a roster of games published by Blumhouse that includes Fear the Spotlight and Eyes of Hellfire. It also has a few games lined up or otherwise in development, such as Crisol: Theater of Idols, Project C, Grave Seasons, and The Simulation. Each is made by a different game studio, including Gambrinous, Playme, and Perfect Garbage.
In an interview with Variety in July 2024, Blumhouse Games’ Creative Lead, Louise Blain, said “We’ll exist in the horror space. I think the incredible thing about horror is it’s so vast. And that means that what you’re looking at on the slate is twisted and weird games, and then playing a pixelated cozy agriculture game with murder.”
Blumhouse Games’ President Zach Wood added: “We’re interested in the fresh ideas in horror, and that doesn’t mean that we won’t be making games based on existing Blumhouse IP in the future – we certainly would like to. But a lot of that is just the right timing. It’s the right idea, it’s the right creative team.”
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