This is a story of a man named Stanley. Or rather, the second… no third time we have encountered Stanley’s tale throughout the years. The Stanley Parable originated as an ambitious player-created mod for Half-Life 2 in 2011. The game caught gamers’ attention, particularly streamers, for its unique approach to non-linear storytelling, its ability to surprise players with every route they discover and take, its beloved narrator, and never compromising its narrative for gameplay or pretty visuals. This accolade was no insignificant feat considering the very first scene in the game has you walking down nondescript office corridors.
In response to the mod’s success, Galactic Cafe published a standalone version of the game on Steam in 2013, complemented by a plethora of new story routes, audiovisual enhancements, more witty banter, and other improvements across the board. Now in 2022, the team at (now) Crows Crows Crows have, after multiple years of delays, released an enhanced version of the classic titled The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. Boasting multiplatform support, an expansion of the original game and that “everything you remember has been recreated, yet it’s different somehow”, the development team were very tight-lipped about what the game would entail. Being tight-lipped worked in their favour. While I will attempt to remain tight-lipped while writing this review, I encourage those who want to dive in completely unknowing of what lies ahead to take this comment and leave this review here: Yes, this is a fitting successor to the original HD Remake.
The Stanley Parable follows the player character named Stanley, who works for a big company as employee #427. His job is simple. He just sits at a desk and pushes buttons on a keyboard as orders come through. Most would consider this a soul-rendering job; however, Stanley finds his work fulfilling and is happily content with his life. One day when all his co-workers disappear, he decides to go and search for them… unveiling a big secret that will change his life forever.
As players of the original would know, this is at least what the introductory narration purports the game to be about, and if you follow all directions presented to you while playing, then that is the tale you will be told during your playthrough. So commences the war between the player and the game’s Narrator (Voiced by British voice-actor Kevan Brighting), as this is your game, dammit, and you aren’t going to let anyone, especially not some omnipresent voice, tell you how to play it… right?
Everything begins when the player is presented with a choice of two doors, with the omnipresent narrator bellowing, “When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left”. You can follow his instructions or choose the door on the right, leading to a whole new route with its own unique events and endings. Many video games give an impression of offering a choice when it comes to dialogue options, but these often have no immediate impact on the plot or result in a mere single line of dialogue being changed. The Stanley Parable, on the other hand, provides meaningful choices, where every decision you make has a direct impact on the progression of events.
Dare you go into the ominous room filled with hundreds of monitors the narrator goads you towards or deviate into the eerie corridor marked “Escape”? Will you answer the phone call from “her”? Are you up for four hours of repetitive button pressing to unlock a hidden ending? No matter how tedious or impossible, each route is catered to. This is even when you go out of your way to break or cheat the game, with an unintentional OG glitch being turned into an ending proper (and arguably one of the more hilarious ones). While every playthrough can take between one and twenty minutes, its replayability is much greater through the many different paths to work towards, not all obvious at first glance.
If you are brand new to The Stanley Parable, you can enjoy the entire based game uninterrupted and as it was before, outside of a couple of new endings being introduced. I would strongly recommend doing this, as in hindsight, The Stanley Parable was an incredible pocket-sized experience that it didn’t need sequel content. For those who have already played through the original game and want to dive into the new content… hold your horses. You will still need to play through some of your favourite endings once again before you find Door #416 replaced by an ‘Extra Content’ sign, leading you into new content that rivals its predecessor in terms of both length and quality.
While The Stanley Parable was always a game about poking and prodding at the narrative tropes it is based off, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe takes this one step further by being peak levels of meta, both towards itself and the game industry as a whole. More simply put, Stanley Parable is all about the player trying to go against a pre-planned story while the developers have the foresight towards every action Stanley (you) will take. Ultra Deluxe is about the developers going YOLO and fully embracing the ideas, fans, lore, and sheer quirkiness of their creation.
Starting off with a pseudo-showcase of a few skills the developers purportedly put into the game to a whole ‘Museum of Memories’ concept where the Narrator blissfully or frantically goes through reviews of the original game, it sets a tone around the assumed demand for there being a sequel, and what Crows Crows Crows could even put into one given how water-tight The Stanley Parable was in the first place.
As someone who felt the game was perfect in its first and second iterations, some of the industry jokes fell flat as they felt like they applied to others. The fourth wall breaking is very welcome, as it was some of the strongest elements of the original game. While some pieces of new content are better than others, it all unifies into an enjoyable experience throughout its 5ish hour runtime. Was it unnecessary? Perhaps. But having the writing team unique and write a follow-up Stanley Parable for 2022 has its charm, and the developers ensured that everything had its purpose (even if unclear through most of the game), and still had the foresight to comically flay those who try and break the system. Perhaps most importantly, though, it is clear that the creative team had lots of fun this time around, as it shows throughout the experience.
Between The Stanley Parable and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, the game was transitioned over from Source Engine (Used for Valve’s Portal 2) to Unity. Despite this change, they have retained the exact same aesthetic, from my eyes potentially down to the pixel, and you would assume the game was still built in the Source Engine. Whether due to the engine change or just permissions tomfoolery, the only significant change design-wise were the two games that make cameos in one of the game’s original endings. While available on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch, there are no substantial changes in visual quality outside of slightly higher-res environments and some ambitious new areas made available – usurping the scale of the canonical ‘bad ending’ room. One touch that can be appreciated are the range of accessibility options available, from options for colour blindness, subtitles and in-world text localisations and content warnings / disabling for triggering topics such as suicide.
The greatest asset in The Stanley Parable still remains Kevan Brighting as the Narrator, who has earned himself a significant legion of fans and other in-character voice roles since starring as the character in 2011. Starting off with a charming yet forceful voice that directs Stanley through the storyline, his emotions shift depending on your actions in an attempt to salvage the story. Fourth-wall breaking, insult-flinging and editing the game world are all elements in his repertoire of responses as he becomes increasingly cynical and frustrated at your actions. It is hard to place the Narrator’s actual role in the game, as it differs depending on your route. Sometimes he is an antagonist; sometimes, he is simply a narrator, and other times, he is a victim of the story himself. But ultimately, he is a personification of narrative design in gaming, who is struggling to get the intended storyline across to a player who is given more freedom than usual to deviate from the planned plot. As if these lines were recorded by Brighting back in 2011, there is no difference in the vocals or tone of his recordings, and if anything, his range of personalities and personas have only gotten better.
So after delays that were long enough to warrant multiple annual delay videos, we finally have The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe in our hands. The seamless transition to all modern-day consoles bringing an already satisfying experience to a wider audience, complemented by approximately double the content with the extra content being the oh-so-unnecessary-yet-appealing icing on top makes this worth picking up in my opinion – whether for the first time or a second time. The game may have celebrated its decade-anniversary already, but it shines just as much as it did in 2011.
Also, bucket best girl 2022.
About this Review of The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
A PlayStation 5 copy of The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe was purchased by myself for the purpose of this review. This is the only version of the game used for the purposes of playtesting. Any comparisons made to the previous releases of The Stanley Parable are based on the PC versions.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is now available to purchase on the PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (via the PlayStation Store), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S (via the Xbox Marketplace) and Nintendo Switch (via the Nintendo eShop). The game is only available digitally at this point in time.
