Nine Inch Nails have always loved horror. The industrial titans’ abrasive 1994 breakout ‘The Downward Spiral’ was written and recorded at Le Pig, the house where the Manson Family cult murdered Sharon Tate in 1969 – and their sinister, brooding soundtrack for mid-’90s shooter Quake is as terrifying as the 64-bit beasties lurking within. Later records have explored similar topics to Charlie Brooker’s creeping satire Black Mirror (Miley Cyrus’ peppy popstar persona Ashley O even reworked ‘Head Like A Hole’ in season five), while last year’s ‘Peel It Back’ tour used handheld video cameras to give the Nails’ thundering live show a sense of found footage dread.
So what better genre for long-serving guitarist Robin Finck to tackle with his debut video game? Sleep Awake is a first-person psychological horror set in a near-future nightmare where residents of the last city on Earth slowly disappear while sleeping.
To survive the ‘Hush’, people are forced into reckless experiments to stay awake and must avoid marauding death cults as well as tyrannical rulers. The game, created by Finck and well-known developer Cory Davis’ Eyes Out Studio in collaboration with spooky masterminds Blumhouse, was released last December – already finding an appreciative, if niche, audience online.
It’s properly terrifying, even if you’re a horror vet
Right from the start, Finck and Davis knew they wanted to build a “gritty and worn” immersive horror that was set in a vibrant, otherworldly realm that you could explore. “Horror shocks. It’s an assault on the senses that urges us to think beyond our ordinary experiences,” Finck explains. “At its best though, horror is a real exploration of the unknown.”
In Sleep Awake, players must stay alive long enough to navigate mind-boggling puzzles and protect themselves without a weapon. It’s harrowingly bleak but “there’s an undercurrent of hope in the trials and tribulations,” promises Finck.
Finck didn’t grow up playing video games, only stumbling into the hobby years later as an adult. Nine Inch Nails had hit pause in 2013 after two years on the road, and Finck was “sitting under a tree thinking ‘what the hell am I going to do now?’” when, right on cue, his friend Mike Wilson phoned him up. The pair had crossed paths a decade earlier at Burning Man Festival before Wilson went on to co-found indie game publisher Devolver Digital. He wanted to know if Finck would be interested in writing some music for an upcoming title.
“I immediately said no. I had no experience and I didn’t want to mess anything up for him,” remembers Finck. As soon as he hung up the phone, he regretted his knee-jerk reaction. He called Wilson back and spent the next few years slowly immersing himself into the world of video games – teaming up with ambient musician Wordclock to make 2015 survival horror Noct and contributing to the score for 2019 sci-fi adventure Observation.
While playing an early version of spooky virtual reality romp Here They Lie, he crossed paths with creator Cory Davis and they bonded over a shared love of frantic, haunting ‘80s horror soundtracks. It wasn’t long before conversations about music evolved into plans for Sleep Awake. “We were both really turned on by the strong sense of identity this world seemed to have.”
These classic games inspired Finck
Finck played catch-up, inspired by acclaimed sci-fi stealth game Alien: Isolation, industrial nightmare BioShock and the twisted suspense of thriller Alan Wake. “Because I didn’t grow up playing games, I could come at it from a fresh perspective,” he explains. As soon as they started full production on Sleep Awake though, that stopped. “The time for neatly organised lists of our favourite references was over.”
Their team slowly grew and Finck, who also had an 11-year stint touring with Guns N’ Roses, found a familiar sense of camaraderie at Eyes Out. “Everyone was working towards this shared vision. It was a lifeboat for me at the time.”
The music shaped every part of the game
Unsurprisingly, given Finck’s history, music shaped every aspect of Sleep Awake. One of the first things Finck and Davis did was to drive two vans filled with instruments to an off-grid house near Joshua Tree, California, and spend 10 days making as much noise as possible. “It was vital exploration,” grins Finck, who spent the next four years mining those recordings for the game’s crunching, industrial soundtrack. “Being disconnected from everything else also helped.”
The sessions were also used to create the official soundtrack album, which is out now on streaming. There was so much music to wade through, Finck reached out to former Nine Inch Nails member and Saw composer Charlie Clouser for help.
Despite their own extra-curricular activities scoring Hollywood blockbusters and upcoming Naughty Dog game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Finck never asked bandmates Trent Reznor or Atticus Ross for advice. “They’re interested in the game and are rooting for us [to succeed] but it’s my thing. When we get together, we’re talking about Nine Inch Nails.”
Later this month, he starts rehearsals for the next leg of the ‘Peel It Back’ tour which has already included some of their biggest ever shows. “There are so many people coming [to see us] which has been really exciting. 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’s also talking to Davis about what’s next for Eyes Out. They have several ideas they’re excited about developing, including a Sleep Awake spin-off that explores the dystopian world from different perspectives – something that was cut from an early version of the game. “We’ll continue telling dark stories by way of cosmic horrors though,” he says. “Horror just feels like the most genuine outlet for us.”
‘Sleep Awake’ is out now for PC, PlayStation and Xbox