The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Reviews
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a thought-provoking narrative game that masterfully explores themes of choice and free will through clever humor and unique endings. While the expansion offers new content, some find it underwhelming, and the pacing can be slow at times. Despite a few less polished moments and a lack of traditional mechanics, the game's engaging storytelling and absurdist themes make it a distinct experience that captivates players.
In conclusion, is it worth trying? If you have NEVER played The Stanley Parable, you shouldn't even be here. But at this point, I absolutely recommend trying it because even if you've spoiled everything, it's still an experience worth having. If you've played The Stanley Parable but haven't played Ultra Deluxe, you also shouldn't be here. But does anyone follow the rules on this site? Anyway, since you're here... Ultra Deluxe isn't what you expected, and I don't know if I can recommend buying it, but having lowered your expectations so much, maybe you'll appreciate it a bit more. I'll say what's banal and expected, like everything in Stanley Parable: the choice is ultimately yours. The title, in its entirety, remains an excellent game, finally accessible to the console audience, and I can't help but recommend it. Whether this is enough or not is no longer up to me to decide.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Among the indie games I've greatly enjoyed on PC over the years and have wondered when they would make their way to Switch, The Stanley Parable was one of my last holdouts, so I'm thrilled it is finally here...
Stanley's Ultra Deluxe is not a re-release to cash in on the fame of the original. Rather, it proves its worth by adding a new layer to the story and criticizing the current state of the game industry. If you enjoyed the original version, you will definitely enjoy the new content of the game.
Review in Persian | Read full review
While The Stanley Parable was already a unique and awesome experience, with its superb narrative and the wide range of choices the player can experience, the Ultre Deluxe Edition makes it even better and crazier, truly an experience everybody should try once in their life.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe doesn't just make fun of other games. It makes fun of itself and its successes and shortcomings. And it's all wrapped up in the same expert presentation as the original game all those years ago. There's more than enough new content, the new jokes are fun, and the use of old scenery in new ways is simply brilliant. The whole game is, in short, merely brilliant.
Review in Czech | Read full review
If you are still reading this review then what are you waiting for? Piss off and go buy the Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It’s one of the most unique games you’ll ever play and an experience you won’t soon forget. Brilliant.
In 2013, The Stanley Parable was one of my obsessions. The game surprised me a lot with its storytelling and the gameplay remained in my mind for years. Today, in 2022, I believe the same will happen with The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. Though the impact was lesser than it was almost a decade ago, I noticed the text quality in the game and its design innovation did not lose [their brilliance] over time. As I walked again through these paths I had already gone through, The jokes still worked and the serious moments still hit me [like before]. The extra content, though not so incorporated into the original game's design, works as another title, with surprises in every one of its various minutes. Not knowing what will happen next time the game starts has never been so fun. In the end, it's worth playing Stanley's parable. Or to let yourself be played by it.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Edition (Multi) is the kind of game that's simple and easy to play, but complex and tough to review, thanks to its unique concept of game design and the originality and humor-driven insight of its interpretation and evaluation of videogame narrative. However, it's also the kind of game that can be fun and interesting for any kind of player who likes interactive fiction or those who study [the] videogame narrative [possibilities].
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Stanley Parable: Ultra deluxe is a new version of the 2013 classic that adds a good number of novelties, decisions and alternative endings. If you've never played the original game, it's time to give this new installment a chance and find out what makes it so great.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe not only recaptures the magic of almost a decade ago, as it features new and more sophisticated tricks that left us imprisoned to the screen. The original content shows its' age, but the new content is very fresh and beautifully complements Stanley's misadventures. If you never played the original, prepare to laugh, cry, be scared and reflect on everything and everyone. If you know this game since its original release, get ready to do it all again. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a mandatory experience for any gamer, and this new release made us remember which it's such an acclaimed indie title.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe is an essay on players and our wrong habits. On the uselessness of reviews, expecially when they cannot talk about game content because of NDAs and readers spoilerphobia.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If this game is a series of choices, each leading to more choices, leading to different ends only to begin again, then you only need to make one choice to begin. And that’s to choose to play it.
While The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe may come off as a game about the decision-making process and significance of making choices, the unpredictable nature of its story endings can leave you perplexed and perhaps doubt your rationality at times. Ultimately, this game provides a beautiful experience that you may not find in other titles. It is an engrossing, amusing, and beautifully created work of art in every way.
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 groundbreaking as the original, The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe is a must-play for fans of the original – and if you’ve never experienced the game, it’s the perfect place to learn what made the original so brilliant while finding a number of new twists.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is an essential gaming experience. It’s simultaneously a hilariously absurd adventure that can be enjoyed on its own merits and an insightful examination of storytelling in gaming. The acutely self-aware new content reframes the original game to give it refreshing new purpose alongside a cluster of new barbs aimed at the flaws in modern gaming. A must play.
It’s a dining experience worth returning to for fans who already count The Stanley Parable among their favourite meals, balanced with providing the perfect place for new players to take a chance on something different. Regardless of which door you enter, the philosophical taste is likely to linger long after you’re finished.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe really does live up to the high pedestal it has always shined upon. There is no better time to play or revisit this relevant social commentary of games, media, and decision-making now, more than ever before. With Ultra Deluxe, Crows Crows Crows and the masterminds behind The Stanley Parable’s original release have only added more to appreciate about the harsh reality of the titular employee’s mind-bending debacle.
Through its thoroughly engaging writing and cutting commentary, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is able to make fun of exactly what it is and get away with it, allowing the game to have its cake and eat it, too.
There has never been a better time to experience The Stanley Parable, where the end is never truly the end.