Published: 22 Mar 2026
The Stanley Parable
- Developed and Published by: Galactic Cafe
- Released on: 2013
- Genre: Walking Simulator
- Rating: 4.5/5
One of those games I find impossible to review, or at least impossible to express why I liked the game so much back in the day, and continue to like it all these years later (vindicated by the revisit via the Ultra Edition). I could go on-and-on with how it fundamentally plays with video game expectations and narratives through the asymmetric vehicle of Stanley, a silent protagonist (?) whose actions you control, and the narrator, who both guides and reacts to your actions in various ways. I could talk about the subversion of tropes, the 4th wall breaks, mocking the very idea of choice etc. etc. But I won’t. The key to determining whether you will enjoy The Stanley Parable is really three-fold - if you like thinking about games as a concept, you like poking at the rules, and, most importantly, whether you find the humour funny - with those checked The Stanley Parable is a hilarious game with plenty to mess around and explore, and without it is a miserable experience with nothing interesting to say or show, and you’ll quickly find out which camp you’re in.
Did you get the broom closet ending guys? The broom closet ending was my favourite.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
- Developed and Published by: Galactic Cafe
- Released on: 2013
- Genre: Walking Simulator
- Rating: 4/5
How do make a sequel to The Stanley Parable? What more could be said? What more could be satirised? Would the same jokes and humour still land all these years later? Why did they essentially integrate the new game into the old one in the first place (an engine change notwithstanding)? How meta can meta go? Is a bucket funny?
I don’t think it hits quite as hard as it does back then, perhaps due to the long passage of time (one can only experience the true novelty of The Stanley Parable once), and instead has to go further with its meta commentary instead - around sequels, reviews and the general video gaming industry rather than the core of the game itself, something which I think is a little weaker, not quite as cohesive and not quite as funny (poking fun at pointless sequels, collectables, extra content whilst doing all that is a little low-brow compared to the original) - but there are individual spots and endings where not only is the original magic still there, they somehow surpass the original. Did this sequel need to exist? Perhaps not, and there’s a real streak of self-loathing, deliberately sabotaging Ultra Deluxe into an elaborate prank (“you get what you deserve”) that simultaneously fits The Stanley Parable and yet doesn’t fit, seemingly uncomfortable of the original games own success’ - an odd contrast/“aftertaste” when compared to the original’s refreshing “honesty” about what it wanted to be. Either way, it puts to rest what a Stanley Parable sequel(s) “could have been” and simply asks you to accept what it is, snark and all.
One could say there’s BUCKETS full of new content, and that the original now PAILS in comparison…
