Sagebrush

About Sagebrush

Sagebrush is the first game from Redact Games, the studio of Nate Berens. It came out on PC and Mac in September 2018, and Ratalaika Games brought it to Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2019.

The cult is Perfect Heaven, formed in the early 1990s around a prophet called Father James. Years after the Flock took their lives together, you arrive at Black Sage Ranch, their home in the remote New Mexico desert, and walk it from the trailers where they slept to the halls where they ate and prayed, and down into old mines beneath the compound.

There are no monsters and nothing to fight. You open doors, find journals, letters, tapes and belongings, and read the sermons and private thoughts of the people who lived there. The maker based the cult on research into real apocalyptic groups and avoids easy answers: the members are ordinary people with their own reasons for joining.

The fear is slow and quiet. The low-poly, low-resolution look, the dusk light and the ambient score make the empty ranch feel watched, and the more you read, the heavier it gets to know how the story ends. It suits players who like walking simulators and found-story games, and anyone who wants an evening's horror built on something real rather than on jump scares.

How to play Sagebrush

1. Buy Sagebrush on Steam or itch.io for Windows or Mac, or on the Switch, PlayStation 4 or Xbox store.
2. Walk into Black Sage Ranch and look around the trailers and buildings in first person.
3. Pick up and read the notes, journals and letters you find, and play the recordings.
4. Open new parts of the compound as you go, down to the mines below it.
5. Keep exploring until you have the whole story of Perfect Heaven.

Tips

• Read everything: the story is in the notes and tapes, not in cutscenes.
• Play with headphones; the ambient sound carries much of the mood.
• Take your time in each building before moving on, as later areas build on what earlier notes tell you.

Questions