Beginning out in 2011 as a mod for Half-Life 2 earlier than getting its personal Supply engine launch on Steam as a standalone sport simply two years later, The Stanley Parable has develop into an plain basic. Its weird premise of the titular character caught in an workplace, hopelessly navigating a labyrinth of cubicles, hallways, convention rooms, workplaces, thoughts management services, depths of hell, serene landscapes, and extra with solely a snarky narrator to information him, is both a commentary on video video games, fashionable worklife, existentialist philosophy, or (greater than possible) all of those directly.
Apart from the narrator guiding you from a script, stopping to query or berate you each time your decisions deviate from his proclamations, it was cheap to imagine that Stanley was most likely alone on this mysterious workplace. Certain, the narrator generally made jokes about Stanley being adopted, and there was one extremely uncommon alternative to catch a glimpse of somebody early within the sport, however except for this, Stanley was in any other case alone. Wasn’t he? Whereas the preliminary sighting would possibly’ve been defined away as Stanley seeing himself because of some sort of weird-but-totally applicable timespace aberration, many have been left to marvel if there are different individuals hiding across the workplace. Wating. Maybe watching. Effectively, 2022’s glorious much-more-than-a-remake has given gamers much more motive to look over their shoulders when traversing the depths of the workplace, and gamers are pooling their proof that Stanley might not be so alone in any case.
Relying on who you ask, it would both make Stanley’s predicament extra comforting or extra disturbing to suppose that another person might be strolling the halls of the workplace together with him. Be it a G-man-esque customer, one other worker because the narrator hints, or Stanley himself as others speculate, a video has surfaced on Reddit, revealing not solely that you could as soon as once more catch a really uncommon glimpse of one other life in these often lifeless halls, but in addition exhibiting that the identical mystery-person glimpsed within the unique sport is now heading in the wrong way than they did earlier than.
In true Patterson-Gimlin vogue, as of but there’s no footage of this thriller particular person being noticed elsewhere within the sport, simply one other sighting or two in the identical place. One submit from a now-deleted account—that’s not bizarre in any respect—has requested about additional sightings, whereas others have requested about recognizing different individuals within the sport.
Had been this merely one sighting of another person on this digital Lynchian fever dream of a sport, that might be creepy sufficient. Alas, extra screenshots and movies (some which may be thought of spoilers, so truthful warning) are surfacing on Reddit and Twitter of different mystery-people apparently observing and following Stanley. One Reddit consumer claims to have used a noclip mod to get a clearer glimpse of a determine solely briefly seen from a distance, standing in a pool of crimson mild whereas Stanley rides up an elevator. The outcomes, and the thought {that a} mysterious determine like this may be watching Stanley all through his epic misadventure, is unsettling.
Fascinated by these sightings, I hoped to make my very own contributions to the fact-finding efforts of different gamers, or at the least see one in all these thriller figures for myself. Alas, in my very own makes an attempt to catch at the least a glimpse of the elusive coworker/different Stanley, the sport wouldn’t tolerate my six or seven restarts. It as a substitute pushed me into one other room the place I used to be compelled to proceed down the principle story path. In fact it did.
It seems like I’ll be sticking to catching glimpses on the web. It may be a good suggestion to maintain the lights on when perusing the web for extra footage of this phenomenon. “Somebody,” “watching” and “following” are good, but terrifying, key phrases for this.
