Hooooooooooly Fever Dream.
SLEEP AWAKE is the latest title to join the Blumhouse Games lineup, and wow, this one is a trip. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Blumhouse is killing it right now. Fear the Spotlight was a stellar retro-inspired debut, Crisol: Theater of Idols is easily one of my most anticipated horror titles, and now SLEEP AWAKE has grabbed my attention in a way few demos manage to. It’s bizarre, hypnotic, and strangely beautiful. An experience I didn’t want to blink and miss a second of.
Gameplay
At its core, SLEEP AWAKE is a pretty standard survival horror game, but describing it that way almost feels wrong. It’s more like survival horror on a psychedelic trip through your subconscious.
The demo begins with a montage of warped, dreamlike footage while a disembodied voice speaks ominously about “the hush.” It immediately sets an unnerving tone, half nightmare, half art film. From there, you briefly explore your home before slipping into sleep, where things get really wild. The dreamscape sequence that follows had my jaw on the floor. Everything felt surreal and disjointed, like I’d fallen into a neon-soaked music video.
Speaking of music videos-the soundtrack absolutely slaps. The game’s atmosphere is elevated by an incredible score, thanks in part to Robin Finck, whose haunting and distorted tones make every frame feel alive and unstable.
When you finally awaken, it becomes clear that you’ve wandered far from safety. What follows is a slow, eerie trek back to your bunker, one that drips with pain, sadness, and pure dread. It’s here that SLEEP AWAKE really leans into its emotional and psychological horror, hinting at something much deeper beneath the madness.
Expectations
How can you even have expectations for a game like this? SLEEP AWAKE defies convention in all the best ways. My biggest hope is that the full release maintains this sense of authenticity and surrealism. I’d love to see the dreamscape explored further, those moments were the highlight of the demo and I’m also hoping for more hands-on gameplay segments to balance out the more cinematic sequences. Still, it’s clear this intro was designed to pull you into its world slowly, and it absolutely succeeded in that.
Verdict
SLEEP AWAKE feels like a waking nightmare I never want to end. It’s unsettling, creative, and brimming with atmosphere. Even if the gameplay is relatively simple, its presentation and tone make it unforgettable. Blumhouse seems to be carving out a distinct identity in the horror game space, one that celebrates cinematic tension and emotional unease just as much as jump scares.
If the full game builds on what this demo started, SLEEP AWAKE could easily be one of the standout horror experiences of the year.
