Few things linger in your subconscious longer than memories of being frightened as a child. Some of my strongest are moments from video games I was probably way too young to be playing, like the gas station scene from the original Resident Evil 2, Scissorman from Clock Tower, and maybe a little more niche, mutated kids from the 1998 point-and-click psychological horror game, Sanitarium. That’s why, when a co-worker asked if I’d seen the newly announced Sanitarium Enhanced, a “modernized” version and the first official launch on consoles, I had a visceral reaction.
It’s been almost 30 years since I’ve played Sanitarium, and to be frank I’d mostly forgotten about it until today, but watching the trailer for Enhanced brought back some powerful memories. I specifically remember the inmates of the asylum banging their heads against the stone walls and the splatter of blood left behind.
Sanitarium places you in the shoes of an unfortunate man who wakes up in a ruined asylum, disfigured and without any memory of his previous life. Once you get out of there it’s like a horrible amusement park full of genuinely disturbing attractions, from the aforementioned village of deformed children to the town crawling with giant, mutant insects, to the circus level with squid man and dog man. As you point and click through the world, you’ll uncover the likely horrific truth of your past.
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Sanitarium Enhanced includes various modern features like full controller support for consoles and Steam Deck, widescreen display, “never-before-seen bonus material,” and “other quality-of-life improvements.” Crucially, there are also “fixes to legacy bugs and issues” and an optional hint system to help you find interactables. In my research, two of the most common pain points about the original game is that it’s pretty buggy and its interactable objects can be hard to separate from environments due to the dated visuals.
The game comes out in 2026 for Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 1 and 2. I can’t wait to revisit those very same nightmares some 28 years later.
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