You step into the shoes of Annika, a researcher stationed aboard a space station that has recently come under alien attack. Fortunately, your location places you away from the initial assault, giving you a crucial window to figure out what’s going on and begin navigating the station undetected.
As a non-combatant, you lack offensive capabilities or military training, so stealth becomes your primary means of survival. Your success depends heavily on moving silently and staying out of sight, as alien invaders are quick to react to any activity.
Movement plays a central role in your survival. While you can walk normally, doing so produces a visible sound ring that nearby enemies can detect. To avoid detection, you must use your crouch ability, which not only eliminates the noise you make but also helps you slip past threats. Remaining crouched is essential even when you feel safe, since aliens possess an acute sense of hearing. They can pick up sounds through walls and from long distances. Once alerted, an icon in the form of a question mark appears above their heads, and they'll begin investigating your last known location.
Your other two moves are slide and a roll. These maneuvers are designed to help you quickly reach cover, though they’re not very versatile outside of specific circumstances. The main functional difference is that a slide ends with you automatically crouched, while a roll leaves you in a standing position. These moves also come into play when you encounter two colored lasers, each color requires a specific maneuver to bypass it safely.
The game world is segmented into 38 rooms, with each room functioning as a self-contained puzzle. In each room, your objective is to reach the exit, using a combination of stealth and tools to navigate past enemies. Often, you'll need to collect keycards in different colors to unlock doors, access new areas, or manipulate the environment. These keycards are often placed in locations that require clever strategy and stealth to reach.
Your main adversaries are the patrolling or stationary alien enemies scattered throughout the rooms. While their hearing range isn’t explicitly visualized, they do have visible sight cones that indicate their field of vision. To avoid detection, you’ll often need to take advantage of the environment, such as ducking into vents, hiding in lockers, or using various tools to mislead or distract your foes. Enemies aren’t especially varied, with the exception of one unique type and boss encounter that requires the use of gadgets.
Distraction tools come in two primary forms: environmental elements and collectible gadgets. Environmental include objects such as light switches, broken glass, and air-lock mechanisms. Some of these can be manipulated to create noise, while others, like the air-lock, can remove enemies from the room entirely by sucking them out into space. Gadgets, on the other hand, are stored in crates that can be broken open. These provide useful tech like sound-emitting lures, camera-disabling hacks, temporary invisibility cloaks, and other helpful tools.
One major convenience in gameplay is the forgiving gadget system. You’re never in danger of rendering a room unsolvable by using or wasting a tool. A hovering drone routinely restocks the crates with random gadgets every couple of minutes, allowing you to hoard as many as you like.
Despite the various tools and tactical options available, the game maintains a low difficulty curve. While enemies can eliminate you in a single hit, death carries minimal consequences. You respawn instantly at the start of the room without losing any collected items or progress. Doors you’ve opened remain open, keycards stay in your inventory, and enemies removed from the environment remain gone. This allows for strategies that feel almost like exploits, such as sprinting directly to a keycard, grabbing it, and allowing yourself to be caught, knowing it will remain with you after respawn.
Even alarms and traps can sometimes be brushed off without serious repercussions. While triggering an alarm causes additional enemies to spawn and search your location, they vanish after a short period. If you’re caught before they disappear, you’ll respawn instantly, but sometimes right into their path. However, this mechanic can be used to your advantage.
For example, deliberately triggering an alarm near the entrance, getting caught, and then respawning allows you to slip past the distracted enemies and dash toward your target. It all gets a lot easier when you get a taser and a cloak that lets you overcome any obstacle.
