The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

I tend to prefer action games over so-called walking simulators, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the latter when a developer comes up with a really innovative idea to take advantage of its narrative-driven structure. Case and point, The Stanley Parable. I’m not going to beat around the bush: I legit feel that The Stanley Parable is not only the best walking sim ever made, but one of the best games of all time, period. It’s the one game in the genre that I can think of that to...

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is an excellent expansion of a bonafide classic interactive adventure. We'll admit we were slightly concerned that returning to something so masterful, expanding and adding to such a carefully constructed experience, could somehow dilute the magic, but we needn't have worried. All of the new content here simply embellishes what came before, resulting in a wonderful piece of art that's now better, more ultra and, you might even say, deluxe than ever before. Whether you're coming to this one for the first time or returning to see what's changed, you'll be handso...

For those that have been here before, you might feel some sense of disappointment at first – after all, 2013 was nearly a decade ago, and the tropes of video game design back then feel a little dated now. So where’s the new content? What has this triumph of game design from 2013 done exactly to earn it’s “Ultra Deluxe” title?

But so what? The glory of The Stanley Parable was always that it was a game supremely confident in itself, giving you branching choices that were not choices, inviting you to push up against the boundaries of its world and see how far you could go. The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe expands those boundaries and gives you new things to explore, and in the process it managed to surprise me even as someone who had picked over the original game quite extensively. While it may not be as truly ground...

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is funny, witty, irreverent, charming, fiercely intelligent, and an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys fun games and intellectually challenging media.

Buckets of new features appear in The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.

Who is Stanley? Why is Stanley? What's Stanley's story? Find out in this new edition of a classic; here's The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.