The Stanley Parable: Ultra-Deluxe

I never played the original, and playing Ultra-Deluxe for the first time in 2026 felt like walking into a party a decade after everyone else has left. Meta storytelling has always been such a big part of the indie and “solo”-dev mythos, both in terms of individual games (e.g. Undertale, TUNIC, even Celeste) and the overall perception that indie dev is more honest and self-aware and experimental about the medium while triple-A studios in blinkers shuffle around remakes and remasters of tired old franchises. In this context a game that's almost entirely just meta elements explaining themselves to you ended up kinda lacking, to me. Also, I don't think the game really said or did much different after the first two playthroughs I finished (about 10 minutes into the game), a few areas aside. The gags changed, but the ideas remained the same.