After twelve years, indie sci-fi game ‘Routine’ comes out later this year

Way back in 2013, British independent games developer Lunar Software released their first trailer for their upcoming game Routine. Comprised of three people, Lunar Softare promised a claustrophobic, tense survival horror game set on exploring a derelict lunar base. Unfortunately, hopes for a quick release were dashed:

As we were approaching what we believed to be the end of development, we were finding more and more things that we weren’t happy with that negatively impacted the experience. We had worked on the project for 5 years at that point and simply couldn’t release it as it was.

We were surviving on an extremely tight budget. The financial stress began taking a toll on us, especially as we realised we needed to work on things for longer. Routine at this point became a part-time project as we had to work on other jobs/projects to stay afloat.We went from having a release date, to not even knowing when we might be able to release. It was a massive strain on us as we had let ourselves, our friends & family, as well as all of our supporters & fans down.

We struggled and didn’t know how to deal with that or how to fix it. At the time we just wanted to say sorry. But didn’t know how we could even begin to do that without giving some sort of development time window. We weren’t expecting it to take as long as it did – and for those of you who have been waiting patiently, we’re truly sorry.

It took us a while to figure out how to finish the project and deliver it as the experience we intended, but when a line of communication opened with Raw Fury, we knew we had found a partner who would be able to support us in all the areas we previously struggled with.

Lunar Software press release, June 9 222

Happily, despite the long, long wait, the release trailer for the game has been released with a Q4 2025 release date in mind for PC and Xbox.

I, for one, have been eagerly awaiting this game for some time. Twelve years is a mighty long time, though, and, fairly or not, it’s going to be compared with other games of a similar theme (Alien: Isolation, The Callisto Protocol, make your pick). Still, its mysterious premise still has my attention, and I look forwards at long, long last being able to spelunk through the haunted ruins of a moon base gone horribly awry.