Early in my playthrough of Routine, I had a 20-minute period during which I walked back and forth between the rooms and corridors of the game’s abandoned, disused, and seemingly malfunctioning lunar station, searching for one elementary thing: my own ID number. There were papers on the surrounding walls explaining that everyone at the station must have their ID with them at all times, including me. I look everywhere for this badge, I have to enter my ID into a computer terminal to proceed… well, almost everywhere. Most importantly, I don’t look down at my chest, where my ID badge hangs nonchalantly. The ID tag I had been searching for for 20 minutes was with me the whole time, attached to my lunar suit. This admittedly embarrassing lesson changed my approach to Routine, paving the way for a sublime and highly tactile puzzle adventure that kept me glued to the mouse and keyboard.
The routine isn’t filled with video game puzzles; it felt less like an eight-hour game and more like a complicated sci-fi escape room based entirely on logic. You won’t discover obtuse and nonsensical solutions like you might find in, say, a police station full of zombies, but rather codes, numbers and countermeasures placed exactly where they need to be. In this sense, Routine required me to rewrite my approach to its puzzles. I prefer to operate the word “engaging,” which varies from person to person, but Routine struck a chord with me when I put myself in the shoes of this engineer – a guy whose shift today took him to a ruined lunar station to operate computers and analog terminals to figure out what the hell went wrong. Of course, the narrative journey he then goes on references something more antique, more maternal than the 1980s-inspired technology he encounters, but ultimately Routine is about a strange and evil change at work.
Almost everything in Routine happens through the lens of the Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (CAT), a square gun-like tool that can interface with this space station’s technology in various ways. At first, it does little more than display tabs on marked walls to display things like the save button, goals, and saved media. To do this, you need to look at your CAT, press the button on it, and then aim at the indicated wall to raise the hooks. This is the first taste of how tactile Routine is becoming. As you upgrade the tool with more modules, you unlock the ability to shock robotic stalkers, gain access to secure doors, and find hidden messages.
To perform any of these tasks, you have to interact with the CAT by pulling it up and pressing a button, pulling a trigger, or inserting a cartridge-like object… or something – there’s no automation involved. On paper, it’s a grueling routine of pushing buttons before doing what you want, but it’s so diegetic that it’s impossible to imagine the routine without this tactic. I thoroughly enjoyed each puzzle presented to me, which often involved finding hidden codes on walls or in cabinets, plugging them into terminals to unlock a novel clue, and moving on to the next stage of the puzzle (often a novel room or location to explore).
Although vigilant robots that sometimes swarm try to get in the way, requiring you to attack them or escape, and monstrous creatures try to kill you, this antagonistic behavior is a minor aspect of Routine. They’re not harmless, but if you’re saving frequently, they’ll ponderous down your progress a little, ultimately making them feel irrelevant to what makes Routine great.
In Routine Mode, there are no “unlocks” or celebratory moments in the game after you complete a puzzle – just the tedious hum of electricity powering this station, the occasional beep from the monitors, your breathing, and the knowledge that keeps you moving forward. And yet, it’s one of the most invigorating puzzle-solving I’ve ever experienced because of how tempting the reward is for digging deeper and getting one step closer to answering the question, “What’s going on?”
Composer Mick Gordon’s musical talents magnetically blend with the gorgeous behind schedule 70s future aesthetic, which itself is in harmony with the film’s crunchy grain and intoxicatingly impressive attention to detail; The touch of Routine seems to be a key element to complete the atmosphere, and the knowledge that I had to press a button here and open the secure door with the tiny screen of the security module of my CAT, while an unholy creature followed me just a few feet behind, added to the chill that left my mouse drenched in sweat. Disgusting, like a gaping chest that will swallow me if I fail.
Rutine is a survival-horror game in the lightest sense of the word. There are robots and creatures you can run/hide from from time to time, and there isn’t much in your arsenal to fight, but the genre label is misleading – it’s a puzzle game steeped in suspense and terror. With the CAT tool and the wits you would have if you found yourself in that terrible situation, a seductive Pandora’s box of escape rooms awaits you.
