STASIS

About STASIS

STASIS was made by The Brotherhood, an independent studio from Cape Town, and released on 31 August 2015 for Windows and Mac. It was funded on Kickstarter in 2013, and its designer Chris Bischoff named Alien, Event Horizon and Dead Space among his touchstones. It won the Aggie Award for best adventure game of 2015. Ten years on, Feardemic brought it to PlayStation, Xbox and Switch in June 2025. GOG sells it as the Deluxe Edition, with an art book, the soundtrack, the screenplay and wallpapers.

In the distant future, John Maracheck wakes from stasis in great pain aboard the Groomlake. The ship seems deserted, his wife and daughter are missing, and the Groomlake is sinking deeper into the swirling blue methane clouds of Neptune. To find his family he has to work his way through its labs and living quarters and piece together what its crew were doing from the PDAs and computer records they left behind: the Groomlake was a medical ship, and its experiments were illegal.

It plays like the classic adventures: you move John through detailed 2D isometric rooms, pick things up, combine them, use computers and solve puzzles. There is no combat. The fear is in the place: corridors smeared with blood, rooms overgrown with plants, bodies on the floor and records of experiments on people. John can die, and his makers say in the most horrific ways imaginable, and some objects let him end his own life. Mark Morgan, known for Fallout, wrote the music. Only English is spoken, but you can read it in seven other languages, Turkish and Polish among them. Expect a run of about seven hours, which is HowLongToBeat's main story time.

Critics praised its atmosphere and story (Metacritic 79; Rock Paper Shotgun called it the best adventure game its reviewer had played in years), and players warn that it asks for a lot of reading. On the PlayStation Store it holds 4.3 stars out of 5. It suits players of Sanitarium, the white chamber or Dead Space who want a slow, grim sci-fi horror to think through, and its follow-up STASIS: BONE TOTEM continues in the same style.

How to play STASIS

1. Buy STASIS on Steam, GOG or your console's store and start a new game.
2. Click where you want John to walk, and click on objects to look at or use them.
3. Pick up items, combine them in the inventory and use them on the ship's machinery to open the way on.
4. Read the PDAs and computer logs you find: they hold codes and the story of the Groomlake.
5. Save before trying anything risky; a wrong move can kill John.

Tips

• Read everything: PDAs and terminals often hold the answer to the next puzzle.
• Look at objects before using them; John's descriptions hint at what they are for.
• Some deaths are part of the experience, so keep several save slots.
• On PC you can play with the mouse alone and save at any time, so save before you touch anything that looks dangerous.

Questions