When a Fake Horror Game Is Actually Real
After being announced in 2012 and vanishing for over a decade, Routine, the first-person cosmic horror game from Lunar Software set on an abandoned lunar base, was written off as vaporware until it finally released in 2025, and it turned out to be one of the most unsettling horror games in years. In this full story explainer and analysis, I break down Routine's entire plot: the ASN, the Type-05 robots, Entity A, the EL9 infection, the Canal, and the ending that reveals what the game's title truly means. If you love atmospheric horror game video essays and deep-dive lore breakdowns of games like SOMA, Dead Space, and SIGNALIS, this one's for you.
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Chapters
00:00 - The Game That Didn't Exist
01:30 - Welcome to Union Plaza
05:27 - The Mall & the IC
06:55 - The Type-05 Robots
10:17 - The Living Quarters
11:31 - What Happened to John
13:25 - Shutting Down the ASN
14:59 - The Secret Second Half
17:03 - The Ward (1978)
20:04 - Entity A
21:51 - The Annex & the EL9 Infection
25:02 - Entity B & the Founder's Office
26:27 - Preparing the Canal
28:30 - Entity A's Goodbye
29:43 - Into the Canal
31:19 - 1978. 1999. 2025.
32:18 - Outro
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★ Music - Tracks are licensed from Epidemic Sound.
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