Small-team developer Lunar Software revealed their sci-fi game project, Routine, at Gamescom 2025. The game will have players explore an abandoned lunar base while surviving against a looming threat. Heavily inspired by the 1980s, this alternative retrofuture is bound to increase your paranoia. Routine’s trailer promises to offer a scary experience through its isolated environment, nerve-racking soundscape, and a wandering enemy.
Diving into the Unknown with Culture Vision
Lunar Software designed this first-person horror game with a retro futuristic theme. Some analog technology, like CRT monitors and Macintosh robots can be found around the abandoned moon base. According to Routine’s official webpage, this station acted as a commune. The ‘Explore’ section mentions that there are Living Quarters and abandoned malls. The featured gameplay trailer at Gamescom also presented a sewage system.
The team wanted to use early visions of what people believed the future would look like. The 1980s provided many sci-fi films that captured the aesthetics. Alien could be the leading inspiration for imagining an operational spaceship with predicted space equipment. Even from Routine’s decaying environment, you can see shades of white, brown, and orange depicting the era.
Minimal UI for an Immersive Experience
Routine establishes a minimal UI to keep players immersed in its world. Xbox Wire mentions that sci-fi horror relies on your senses. The soundscape includes metal groaning, distorted static, mechanical movement, and the cosmonaut’s footsteps. And the lo-fi visual effects make players feel like they are in the base.
The closest thing to a viewable UI is the Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (C.A.T). This advanced Swiss Army knife helps the player navigate around the lunar station, access terminals, and diagnose system issues. It acts similarly to FNAF: Secret of the Mimic’s Data Diver if it were built like Resident Evil: Revelations’ Genesis.
The Looming Threat
As players explore deeper in the commune, something else awaits them. Routine’s trailer and promotional art features a robotic lifeform. It’s currently unknown if this monster is an extraterrestrial or a rogue man-made robot. What’s clear is this mechanical creature is hostile to whoever it encounters.
The player’s mission is to solve what led the lunar station to its demise. However, the lifeform is trying to prevent you from finding the truth. The Gamescom trailer showed gameplay of how the C.A.T can be used for defense. The tool appears to be equipped with stun gun capabilities, but it’s not advised for close distances.
The lifeform also may not be the main threat in Routine, either. The game’s webpage has hinted at unknown threats in the ‘Survive’ section. One of them was shown in the sewer system, as something that is causing the water levels to rise. The player then gets killed after attempting to climb the exit.
Lunar Software Developed Routine for 13 Years
Routine’s Gamescom appearance is the third official trailer update from Lunar Software. The game was first introduced back in 2012 with a futuristic 2000s aesthetic. At the time, its gameplay design was to survive and escape a space station. The game may have been intended to include a multiplayer campaign, as two cosmonauts appear in the trailer.
The team later decided to recreate the game with a better approach to make it more fear-inducing. Then, in Summer Games Fest 2022, indie publisher Raw Fury presented the new-and-improved Routine. The sci-fi horror changed to an 80s futuristic setting and presented these mechanical lifeforms with menacing characteristics.
Lunar Software told Xbox Wire that the project is almost complete. The developers are happy to see how far the game has come since its announcement. The game will be available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows 10 PCs in late 2025. Routine will also be available on Xbox Game Pass on launch day.
