Minimalism is difficult to get right in horror.
Strip away combat. Remove traditional exploration. Reduce the setting to a single repeating location. What you’re left with must stand entirely on atmosphere, pacing, and the player’s paranoia.
The Stairwell—the latest entry in Take IT Studio!’s growing “Before Exit” universe—embraces that challenge head-on. Following titles like Before Exit: Supermarket and Before Exit: Gas Station, this standalone anomaly hunt shifts the formula vertically, trapping players inside a towering, looping stairwell designed by a mysterious architect.
It’s your first day as a security officer. Your job is simple: inspect the floors for reported strange phenomena.
If everything looks normal, go up.
If something feels wrong, go down.
Miss too many anomalies, and you’ll never reach the top.
The “Exit 8” Blueprint, Refined
There’s no avoiding the comparison: The Stairwell draws heavy inspiration from the viral hit The Exit 8. Like that game, the core loop revolves around recognizing subtle environmental changes within a repetitive setting.
But where The Exit 8 traps you in a claustrophobic corridor, The Stairwell adds verticality and scale. The setting—a vast, industrial concrete staircase spiraling upward through an ambiguous high-rise—feels more imposing.
Each loop looks nearly identical:
- Concrete walls
- Safety railings
- Posters and signage
- Dim fluorescent lighting
You climb. You scan. You decide.
Was that poster crooked before?
Did that emergency light flicker differently?
Is that door closer than it was?
The brilliance lies in restraint. Not every anomaly screams for attention. Some are laughably obvious. Others are so subtle you’ll question your memory.
And memory, here, is your only weapon.
Procedural Unease
The game boasts over 50 anomalies across difficulty settings, and they range widely in tone.
Some are almost playful—misplaced objects or slightly altered signage. Others escalate into psychological discomfort: distorted sounds, environmental warping, sudden figures at the edge of your vision.
And yes, there are jump-scare anomalies.
What works particularly well is the unpredictability. The game’s system prioritizes anomalies you haven’t yet encountered, meaning subsequent runs feel curated toward discovery rather than repetition.
This encourages replayability. Completing the game once doesn’t reveal everything. It becomes a checklist of paranoia.
The tension isn’t constant screaming horror. It’s the creeping fear that you might have missed something small.
And if you did? The punishment isn’t always brutal—but it’s enough to sting.
Accessibility Over Punishment
Unlike some anomaly-loop games that reset you entirely for a single mistake, The Stairwell includes a checkpoint system.
You don’t always return to the very beginning after a wrong decision. This small tweak makes a huge difference in accessibility. Casual horror fans can engage without the frustration of losing 20 minutes of progress over one missed poster.
The difficulty settings allow further customization. Standard mode provides balanced lighting and visibility. Nightmare mode removes the lights entirely.
In Nightmare mode, you navigate using a handheld candle.
It’s a simple addition—but dramatically effective.
Nightmare Mode: Darkness as Design
Playing in darkness transforms the experience. The candle’s limited glow forces you to move slower. Shadows swallow distant details. Peripheral vision becomes unreliable.
Anomalies feel more threatening—not necessarily because they are more aggressive, but because your field of vision is restricted.
Even familiar loops feel foreign.
Nightmare mode isn’t simply a harder version—it’s a reinterpretation of the core concept. It demands patience and composure.
If standard mode tests observation, Nightmare tests nerve.
Atmosphere and Sound Design
Visually, The Stairwell is modest. This is not a photorealistic Unreal Engine showcase. Environments are clean, simple, and intentionally repetitive.
But that repetition becomes the canvas for unease.
The lighting flickers just enough to keep you uncertain. The concrete textures feel cold and sterile. The architectural anonymity enhances the feeling of isolation.
Where the game truly excels is sound design.
Footsteps echo with hollow reverberation. Fluorescent lights hum faintly. Distant, almost imperceptible audio shifts suggest something just beyond perception.
There are moments when the silence becomes oppressive. You strain to hear anything that might signal change.
And when a sharp sound finally pierces the quiet—it lands.
The game understands restraint.
Performance and Console Adaptation
On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, performance is smooth and stable. Load times are nearly instantaneous, which is crucial in a loop-based structure where resets occur frequently.
Controls are straightforward. Movement is deliberate but responsive. There’s no combat, so precision mechanics are limited to camera control and navigation.
The console version feels complete and polished. For a £4.99 title, it delivers technical stability without compromise.
Short but Purposeful
Let’s be clear: this is a bite-sized horror experience.
A successful run typically lasts 30–60 minutes. Completionists seeking every anomaly may spend several hours revisiting loops.
But this is not a sprawling narrative horror epic.
There’s minimal exposition beyond the premise. The building’s architect remains mysterious. The greater “Before Exit” universe connection is subtle rather than overt.
And that’s fine.
The ambiguity adds to the psychological tone. Not everything needs explaining.
Where It Stumbles
Despite its strengths, The Stairwell has limitations.
Repetition is inherent to the concept, and while anomalies add variation, some players may tire of the visual sameness.
The anomaly pool, though sizable, eventually reveals patterns. After multiple runs, the shock factor diminishes.
Jump-scare anomalies, while effective initially, can feel predictable once you understand the game’s rhythm.
And while the checkpoint system improves accessibility, it slightly lowers the stakes compared to harsher loop games.
But these are trade-offs rather than failures.
The Value Proposition
At £4.99, expectations should be calibrated.
This is a focused psychological horror experiment. It delivers:
- Strong atmosphere
- Smart anomaly design
- Accessible difficulty scaling
- High replay value within its niche
It doesn’t aim to redefine horror. It refines a viral concept into something polished and console-friendly.
For fans of anomaly hunt games, it’s an easy recommendation.
For players new to the subgenre, it’s an affordable entry point.
Final Verdict
The Stairwell proves that horror doesn’t require elaborate mechanics or sprawling worlds. Sometimes all you need is a concrete staircase, flickering lights, and the creeping doubt that something isn’t where it should be.
Its checkpoint system makes it approachable. Nightmare mode adds genuine tension. The sound design carries the psychological weight.
It’s short. It’s simple. But it’s effective.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
