Nine Inch Nails have long been drawn to the darker corners of art and storytelling. Their harsh and unsettling 1994 breakthrough album ‘The Downward Spiral’ was famously created at Le Pig, the Los Angeles house where the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate in 1969, and their menacing soundtrack for the mid 1990s shooter Quake remains as unnerving as the pixelated monsters it accompanied. Later releases have touched on themes similar to the slow burn social horror of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, with Miley Cyrus’ glossy pop alter ego Ashley O even reworking ‘Head Like A Hole’ in the show’s fifth season. More recently, last year’s ‘Peel It Back’ tour heightened the band’s live intensity by using handheld cameras to give performances the uneasy feel of found footage.
With that history in mind, it feels fitting that longtime guitarist Robin Finck would step into horror for his first video game project. Sleep Awake is a first person psychological horror set in a near future dystopia, where the inhabitants of the last remaining city on Earth begin vanishing in their sleep.
To avoid succumbing to the phenomenon known as the Hush, people resort to dangerous experiments to keep themselves awake, while also navigating threats from roaming death cults and oppressive rulers. Developed by Finck alongside established game creator Cory Davis through Eyes Out Studio, and in collaboration with horror specialists Blumhouse, the game arrived last December and has already built a devoted if underground following online.
From the outset, Finck and Davis were united in their goal of creating a grim and weathered horror experience set within a strange but vivid world that invited exploration. “Horror shocks. It’s an assault on the senses that urges us to think beyond our ordinary experiences,” Finck says. “At its best though, horror is a real exploration of the unknown.”
In Sleep Awake, players must endure long enough to solve disorienting puzzles and defend themselves without weapons. The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak, yet Finck insists there is “an undercurrent of hope in the trials and tribulations.”
Finck did not grow up immersed in video games, only discovering them later in life. After Nine Inch Nails paused activity in 2013 following two years of touring, he found himself at a crossroads. “I was sitting under a tree thinking ‘what the hell am I going to do now?’” he recalls, when an unexpected call came from his friend Mike Wilson. The two had met years earlier at Burning Man, before Wilson went on to co found indie publisher Devolver Digital. Wilson asked if Finck would be interested in composing music for an upcoming game.
“I immediately said no. I had no experience and I didn’t want to mess anything up for him,” Finck admits. Almost as soon as the call ended, regret set in. He rang Wilson back and spent the following years gradually finding his footing in gaming, collaborating with ambient artist Wordclock on the 2015 survival horror Noct and contributing music to the 2019 science fiction adventure Observation.
‘Sleep Awake’. CREDIT: Eyes Out
While testing an early build of the unsettling virtual reality title Here They Lie, Finck met its creator Cory Davis, and the two quickly connected over their shared love of frantic and eerie horror soundtracks from the 1980s. Before long, their discussions about music evolved into the foundations of Sleep Awake. “We were both really turned on by the strong sense of identity this world seemed to have,” Finck says.
These classic games inspired Finck
To catch up, Finck drew inspiration from acclaimed titles like the sci fi stealth thriller Alien: Isolation, the industrial nightmare of BioShock and the tense storytelling of Alan Wake. “Because I didn’t grow up playing games, I could come at it from a fresh perspective,” he explains. Once full production on Sleep Awake began, however, that approach shifted. “The time for neatly organised lists of our favourite references was over.”
As the project expanded, the team around Eyes Out grew too. Finck, who also spent 11 years touring with Guns N’ Roses, found a familiar sense of unity among the developers. “Everyone was working towards this shared vision. It was a lifeboat for me at the time.”
The music shaped every part of the game
Given Finck’s background, it is no surprise that sound became central to Sleep Awake. Early on, he and Davis loaded two vans with instruments and drove to an off grid house near Joshua Tree in California, spending ten days creating as much noise as possible. “It was vital exploration,” Finck says with a smile. Over the next four years, he sifted through those recordings to build the game’s grinding and oppressive industrial score. “Being disconnected from everything else also helped.”
Nine Inch Nail’s Robin Finck. CREDIT: Press
Those sessions also formed the basis of the official soundtrack album, which is now available on streaming platforms. Faced with an overwhelming amount of material, Finck enlisted former Nine Inch Nails member and Saw composer Charlie Clouser to help shape the final release.
Despite their own high profile work scoring films and the upcoming Naughty Dog title Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Finck never sought guidance from bandmates Trent Reznor or Atticus Ross. “They’re interested in the game and are rooting for us to succeed but it’s my thing,” he says. “When we get together, we’re talking about Nine Inch Nails.”
Later this month, Finck will begin rehearsals for the next stretch of the ‘Peel It Back’ tour, which has already featured some of the biggest shows of the band’s career. “There are so many people coming to see us which has been really exciting,” he says. “The production is fun and engaging, it’s a dynamic set, the songs are there and everything’s really firing on all cylinders.”
At the same time, he is already in conversation with Davis about what comes next for Eyes Out. Several ideas are in development, including a potential Sleep Awake spin off that would explore the same dystopian universe from different viewpoints, a concept that was removed from an early version of the game. “We’ll continue telling dark stories by way of cosmic horrors though,” Finck says. “Horror just feels like the most genuine outlet for us.”
‘Sleep Awake’ is out now for PC, PlayStation and Xbox
