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Sleep Awake has drawn mixed reviews: critics tend to praise its surreal atmosphere, visuals, sound, and unusual horror premise, while raising concerns about conventional stealth, simple puzzles, narrative clarity, and short length. It is best approached as a mood-driven, experimental horror game—not as a mechanically deep survival horror experience.
What is Sleep Awake?
Sleep Awake is a first-person psychedelic horror game developed by Eyes Out and published by Blumhouse Games. It follows Katja in a far-future city where people disappear in their sleep. The game was released on December 2, 2025, and is listed for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. These reviews concern the video game, not the similarly named 2012 film.
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Perp The Persistence Enhanced Amélioré(e) Anglais PlayStation 5 | $18.18 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Evil West (PS5) | $44.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Horror Tales: The Wine (PS5) | $28.37 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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KARMA: The Dark World - Limited Edition - PS5 | $45.44 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Merge Games Let's Build a Zoo PS5 | $19.77 | Buy on Amazon |
Its premise turns sleep into a source of danger, giving the game room to explore psychological horror and surreal imagery rather than relying solely on conventional monsters or combat.
What do the critic review scores say?
In the Metacritic snapshot accessed October 8, 2026, Sleep Awake has an all-platform Metascore of 63/100, based on 12 critic reviews. Metacritic classifies that result as “Mixed or Average”; its displayed breakdown is four positive, seven mixed, and one negative review. Metacritic’s all-platform page
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#1 Best Overall
- PS5 Features include raytracing modes and immersive haptic feedback for DualSense
- Use darkness and cover to avoid being overwhelmed by the ship's deadly new inhabitants
- Seek out the weapon fabricators to increase your firepower as you journey deeper, into the dark and terrifying depths, but beware ammo is limited
- Gather materials & schematics for weapon upgrades and suit customizations with buffs
- Harvest DNA material to improve health, toughness and defensive capabilities.Survive an ever changing labyrinth. Each and every expedition into The Persistence will be disorienting and different.Death is just the beginning. Fatal encounters will result in Zimri's consciousness being uploaded into a new cloned body, ready to try again, with any upgraded stats, suits & weapon schematics kept to aid the next attempt to save the ship
The PS5 page shows a higher, platform-specific Metascore of 73/100 from 10 critic reviews, with four positive and five mixed reviews displayed. Keep it separate from the all-platform score: the pages cover different review counts, and their figures should not be combined. Metacritic’s PS5 page
Metacritic also displayed a user score of 4.3/10 from 15 ratings in the same October 8, 2026 snapshot. That is a small, changeable user-rating sample, not part of the critic consensus. Scores and counts can change as more reviews or ratings are added.
Rank #2
- This physical version of the Evil West includes a Wild Wild Easter pack! Tear off undead new while looking fancy like a devil with a new outfit and five weapon skins.
- Fight alone or with a friend in a stylish, bloody action battle
- Myths i legendy opowiadane w stylizowanym, dziwnym wszechświecie dzikiego zachodu
- Grow with extras, weapons and upgrade tools
- Explore and fight in a story-based campaign to save America
What do critics praise most?
Atmosphere and visual style
The most consistent positive response is to the game’s audiovisual identity. Critics describe it as surreal, visually striking, and oppressive, with a distinctive world and a horror mood that stands apart from more conventional genre entries. The PS5 review excerpts gathered by Metacritic include particularly strong praise for its visuals, soundtrack, and world-building.
DualShockers’ excerpt on Metacritic’s PS5 page calls it “absolutely stunning visually” and compares its effect to walking through an art installation. That is a critic’s impression rather than an objective measure, but it captures why the game’s presentation is a central part of its appeal. Metacritic PS5 critic excerpts
Rank #3
- Mediterranean Horror: Explore the forsaken capital of an awe-inspiring archipelago. Do not let yourself be fooled by the gentle sea breeze, the Mediterranean vistas or the comforting summer sun. Since the Devil's Fevers pandemic ravaged the city, it was abandoned, and now only horrific nightmares await there.
- Survive your Nemesis: Someone is relentlessly hunting you. Suffer and agonize while you try to run away from the encounters with this strange stalker obsessed with you.
- Intense Challenges: Solve environmental riddles, physics puzzles and other similar challenges in an interconnected vertical world. Even while being chased and hunted.
- Accessibility and Photomode: Tweak more than 20 Accessibility settings to create a tailored experience for you. Use the Photomode to make perfect shots and unlock many secrets using it.
An unusual horror concept and experimental form
Reviewers also respond to the premise and to the way the game uses its medium. Shacknews’ review excerpt, reproduced by Metacritic, praises how the game treats its conflict as something other than a simple bad guy or monster. Critics point to experimental presentation, including live-action sequences, as part of its distinctive approach. Metacritic critic excerpts
IGN Italia’s excerpt on the PS5 page describes Sleep Awake as visionary in atmosphere and aesthetics, while less impactful in gameplay. That contrast recurs across the reception: the game’s strongest impression is often what it looks and feels like, rather than the complexity of what the player does.
Rank #4
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What are the main criticisms?
Stealth and puzzles are relatively conventional
Several reviewers find the stealth sections weak, repetitive, or familiar, and describe puzzles and mechanics as simple. If you want demanding stealth systems, elaborate puzzles, or a horror game built around deep mechanical challenge, the reviews suggest this may not satisfy that expectation.
The story can be difficult to follow
The setting and ideas intrigue critics, but the presentation can be obscure. Dense proper nouns and limited clarity may make it harder to understand the world or connect with its characters. Reviewers differ on whether the game’s short format keeps the story focused or leaves its premise and character development underexplored.
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- Build your own zoo with over 500 different animals at your disposal, then splice together over 300,000 different animal combinations
- Keep your animals and your itors happy, with hundreds of buildings, foliage, path and enclosure decorations
- Hire the perfect employees to deal with a variety of life events
- Control everything that happens in your park, from what your animals eat to what eats your animals…
- Decide whether you want to run your Zoo above board... or break the law and pocket the extra cash
It is a short experience
Runtime estimates vary by reviewer and play style. GamesRadar estimates three to four hours, while a Shacknews excerpt reproduced by Metacritic says about five hours. These are individual critic estimates, not an official playtime specification. GamesRadar review · Shacknews excerpt on Metacritic
Is Sleep Awake worth playing?
The review pattern points to a clear preference split:
- More likely to enjoy it: players who value psychological horror, surreal art direction, an oppressive soundscape, and an unusual premise.
- More likely to be disappointed: players looking for elaborate stealth, complex puzzles, a highly explicit story, or a long horror campaign.
The mixed all-platform aggregate fits that trade-off. Sleep Awake appears to make a stronger case through its atmosphere and experimentation than through mechanical depth, so whether it works for you depends on which side of that balance matters more.
How should you read the scores?
Metascores summarize critics’ judgments; they do not tell you whether the game’s particular strengths match your taste. The 63/100 all-platform figure and the higher PS5 score are snapshots from separate review sets, not competing measurements of the same exact group. The user rating is a separate, small sample and should not be treated as a substitute for critic reviews.
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For a decision, give more weight to the recurring review themes than to a single number: atmosphere and audiovisual style receive frequent praise, while stealth, puzzles, narrative clarity, and brevity are the main cautions.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
