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Release date: December 4
Platforms: PC and Xbox, day one on Xbox Game Pass
Studio / publisher: Lunar Software, published by Raw Fury
Routine has been the ghost story of sci-fi horror for more than a decade. Announced at Gamescom 2012 with a 2013 window, it went dark for years as the team rebuilt the game from the ground up and battled funding issues. It re-emerged during Summer Game Fest 2022 with a fresh look and Mick Gordon on soundtrack duty. Now it is finally locked in.
What Routine is serving
Set in a derelict lunar facility dressed in an ’80s vision of the future, Routine is a first-person stealth horror where you investigate a station that has gone silent while avoiding lethal patrol units. You are not a space marine. You sneak, scan, and hide, using a handful of tools to survive machines that hit hard and do not bluff.
Why PC players should care
- Atmosphere first: CRT-era UI, analog tech, and cold industrial lighting lean into PC monitors’ contrast and HDR. Expect an audio mix that sells jump scares through positional cues.
- Performance stakes: stealth horror lives or dies on frame pacing. Solid 60 and low input latency matter more than raw FPS peaks for tight hiding and sprint timing.
- Mod-adjacent possibilities: even without official tools, expect reshade presets, FOV tweaks, and challenge runs from the community that keep a single-player game in circulation.
- Game Pass discovery: launching into the subscription puts Routine in front of players who missed the 2012 reveal, which can translate into strong PC concurrency if word of mouth hits.
Development journey in a nutshell
Lunar Software restarted the project after five years when quality did not meet their own bar, then kept it alive part-time until Raw Fury stepped in. The result should be a tighter, more focused take on the “helpless protagonist” style popularized in the early 2010s, now with modern lighting, audio, and AI pathing.
Bottom line: if you like your scares mechanical and your tension unbroken, circle December 4. Routine has every chance to be this year’s late-season cult hit on PC.
