Routine

Routine is a survival horror game played from a first-person perspective. The player controls an unnamed protagonist traversing a lunar base to unravel the mystery of its decline while encountering hostile robots. T), a device used for both combat and environmental interaction, in addition to saving notes and tracking progress. T, and modules which give it tools such as a blacklight to see hidden secrets in the environment.

T can temporarily stun the enemy. Threats and environments within the levels are partially procedurally generated.

In 1999, an unnamed male individual with the job title of "Senior Software Engineer" (voiced by Nathaniel-Jordan Apostol and identified only as "The Player" in the credits) awakens after a seven-day mandatory isolation period in the Arrivals wing of Union Plaza, a tourist resort on the surface of the Moon. The Player leaves his quarters and finds the facility devoid of other people and in disarray. After obtaining a Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (CAT) to interface with Union Plaza's electronic systems, the Player proceeds deeper into the facility.

Along the way, the Player finds notes, emails, and recordings that illuminate the situation. Security officer John Cooper discovered a human corpse with fungus-like growths within a fissure created by a recent moonquake. Cooper panicked and submitted a video to Union Plaza's Automated Security Network (ASN) system for analysis, but this caused it to detect an unrecognized threat and begin to malfunction. Kei Koyama, the Head of Security, was unable to fully override the ASN, and sent for an engineer to debug it.

Lead designer and artist Aaron Foster created small game projects and mods in his early years. He studied at the University of Central Lancashire, where he met designer and artist Jemma Hughes. After graduating in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in game design, Foster taught 3D modeling and creative thinking at the university while also working as a 3D environment artist at Eurocom. In his spare time, he developed various prototypes and ideas using Unreal Engine, with some eventually becoming the basis for Routine.

The game's inspiration stemmed from a desire to combine his childhood passions—science fiction, horror, and the Moon. He also sought to "start pushing the reasons why people interact with a game," believing that games "should mean something more than pressing the right buttons to trigger cutscenes." Routine was influenced by films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Silent Running (1972), Alien (1979), and The Thing (1982), and the television series Space: 1999 (1975–1977). Video game influences included System Shock 2 (1999), White Day: A Labyrinth Named School (2001), and Doom 3 (2004).

Routine received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. OpenCritic determined that 77% of critics recommended the game.