ROUTINE similar games & best alternatives

ROUTINE - Trailer
ROUTINE - routine_1.avif
ROUTINE - routine_2.avif
ROUTINE - routine_3.avif
ROUTINE - routine_4.avif
ROUTINE - routine_5.avif
ROUTINE - routine_6.avif

ROUTINE

Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox One • 2025

Should you play it?

ROUTINE is a First Person Sci-Fi Horror set on an abandoned lunar base designed around an 80s vision of the future. Explore and investigate your surroundings as you survive against unknown threats.

What works

  • Exceptional atmosphere and sound design
  • Immersive retro-futuristic sci-fi setting
  • Challenging and clever puzzles
  • Minimal hand-holding enhances immersion
  • Unique cat device mechanics

Things to keep in mind

  • Short game length
  • Some narrative ambiguity and open-endedness
  • Enemy ai can become predictable
  • Lack of map or navigation aids can confuse
  • Some players find controls clunky

What to play next

Top picks

Games that feels the closest overall

  • SCP: Fragmented Minds

  • Evil Nun: The Broken Mask

  • Lost in Vivo

  • Apsulov: End of Gods

  • SCP: Ground Zero

  • Bendy and the Ink Machine

Less violent

Games that feels like ROUTINE but with less combat and destruction

  • Deliver Us The Moon

  • THE MULLER-POWELL PRINCIPLE

  • THE MULLER-POWELL PRINCIPLE: Foreword

  • SOMA

  • ColdSide

  • Lethe - Episode One

More relaxing

Games that feels like ROUTINE but with a more relaxing feel

  • DARQ: Complete Edition

  • Spirits of Xanadu

  • High Entropy: Challenges

  • The Walking Fish 2: Final Frontier

  • In Sound Mind

  • Mists of Aiden

Choose your own criteria ->

Similarity map

How to compare these games

Compare nearby games

Each card is a nearby game on the similarity map, compared with ROUTINE. Swipe sideways to move between games. Titles already listed in What to play next are left out.

  • Cover and title: open that game’s page.
  • What works / keep in mind: the same highlights as the desktop comparison panel.
  • Bars: the main motivational differences versus this game.
How to use the graph

Similarity map

Each dot is a game placed from its motivation profile relative to this page’s game. Direction shows which motivation differs most; distance along that axis shows how large the gap is.

  • Purple star: this page’s game at the centre — everything is relative to it.
  • Direction: each axis is a main motivational difference vs this game (e.g. more / less competitive).
  • Distance on an axis: how large that difference is (ring scales show +/− points).
  • Coloured chips: click to highlight games that mainly differ on that motivation; click again to reset.
  • Dotted line: link between this page’s game and the one selected for comparison.
  • Hover a dot to preview that game in the panel on the right; click to keep that comparison.
  • Scroll or double-click the chart to zoom.

How to read the map This is a polar difference map: direction = which motivation differs, and distance = how much (same units as the sidebar deltas).

Swipe to compare nearby games with ROUTINE. These titles are not in What to play next.

ROUTINE: A very typical example of its motivational profile. Motivations that often define this kind of title include Expression, Fellowship, Cooperation, Competition. Here, the score leans higher than usual among comparable games on Exploration. It leans lower than usual among comparable games on Relaxation, Expression.

Last update: 21/08/2026