Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason

Cryostasis is a survival horror title set aboard a ship called the North Wind; a Russian, nuclear ice breaker seemingly frozen in an Arctic wasteland. The player takes on the role of a meteorologist named Alexander Nesterov with a task of investigating the events that occured aboard the ship. The game can be described as a modern-day Resident Evil or Doom because of the survival tactics needed to beat the game, and the way the environment and enemies activate.

Integral to the game is the ability to view the last moments of the deceased the protagonist will stumble across during his exploration; key points in the story will be revealed through this method. The player will be able to control some the flashbacks and perhaps even change their outcome. Another distinct feature in the game is the survival of the player: instead of a traditional health bar, the HUD displays a dial representing temperature, which can be replenished by locating sources of heat around the environment.  As this represents the heat in the main character's body, both environmental damage and physical damage are tracked using this heat guage, and there is also a concurrent endurance meter that drops as the character exerts himself in combat and maneuvering. 

The player will begin with no weapons at all, later finding a torn-off water valve to strike enemies with, as well as other improvised weapons. Later in the game the player will progress to a flare gun followed by various, mostly Soviet-era, rifles.

The game can render in Shader models 3.0 and 4.0 (DX9 and 10 respectively) and includes advanced ice and water effects to simulate the bleak, cold environment the games is based within. The game is also capable of rendering PhysX real-time water effects and is the first game to take advantage of this technology. Naturally the game requires a powerful rig to run upon and even with moderate settings selected it will put a high end PC to the test.

The game's narrative is complex enough to actually allow for different interpretations of what is actually going on in the game, providing one of the few purer examples of game play as metaphor in a video game.