Order 13 Review
There’s something uniquely unsettling about being alone at work when you know you shouldn’t be. Order 13 taps into that feeling almost immediately. This isn’t a game about heroes, weapons, or fighting back. It’s about showing up for a night shift, doing your job, and slowly realizing that the building you’re trapped in doesn’t want you there.
On PS5, Order 13 puts you in the shoes of a warehouse worker assigned to a remote fulfillment center. You wake up at your desk, check the incoming orders, and get to work. Print tickets, head out into the warehouse, find the right aisle and shelf, grab the item, bring it back, pack it, ship it. It’s routine. It’s boring. And that’s exactly why it works so well.
The warehouse itself is massive, dark, and deeply uncomfortable. The further you walk from your desk, the quieter it gets. The lighting is harsh in some places, completely absent in others, and you’re constantly aware of how exposed you are. The game never rushes the horror. Instead, it lets the dread build naturally, one trip at a time, until even grabbing a simple order feels risky.
What really gives Order 13 its emotional punch is your cat. Back at your workstation, your cat waits for you, and every time you leave, its well‑being starts to drop. The game never spells out exactly what’s happening—whether it’s loneliness, fear, or something worse—but the result is the same: pressure. You’re constantly torn between being efficient at work and getting back quickly to make sure your cat is okay. That small detail changes everything. Suddenly, the warehouse isn’t just dangerous—it feels cruel.
The gameplay loop is intentionally repetitive, and that’s part of the point. You’re meant to feel stuck in the routine. As the nights go on, quotas increase, new sections of the warehouse unlock, and the job becomes harder to manage. You earn money for completed orders, which you can spend on upgrades that make your work faster or tools that help keep your cat safe. Every decision feels weighted. Do you invest in efficiency, or do you spend that money on comfort and survival?
The horror elements creep in slowly. Strange sounds echo through the warehouse. Shapes move where they shouldn’t. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of something in the dark and aren’t sure if it was real. You’re not given a way to fight back, and that vulnerability is where the tension really comes from. When something does go wrong, it feels earned—not cheap or random.
On PS5, the experience holds together well. Performance is smooth, load times are short, and the controller feedback adds a subtle physicality to movement and interaction. But the real standout is the sound design. The hum of machinery, distant metallic noises, and long stretches of silence make every trip into the warehouse feel heavier than the last. Playing with headphones isn’t just recommended—it completely changes how intense the game feels.
One nice touch is how customizable the experience is. If the horror becomes too stressful, you can tone things down by disabling certain scares, removing lethal enemies, or even turning off the cat’s health mechanic. That flexibility makes Order 13 accessible to a wider audience, though the game is clearly at its best when played as intended, with all the pressure intact.
That said, Order 13 isn’t going to click with everyone. The repetition is deliberate, but it can wear thin if you’re not on the game’s wavelength. Once you understand how the warehouse works, some of the tension fades, and the game doesn’t always introduce new ideas fast enough to replace it. It’s also a fairly short experience, and while it doesn’t overstay its welcome, it leaves you wishing a few of its ideas had been pushed further.
Still, Order 13 does something a lot of horror games don’t: it feels personal. It takes a familiar, modern setting and twists it just enough to make it deeply uncomfortable. There are no epic stakes here—no world to save. Just a shift to survive, a quota to meet, and a cat counting on you to come back.
If you’re a fan of slow‑burn psychological horror, or games that use atmosphere and theme rather than constant jump scares, Order 13 is well worth your time on PS5. It may not haunt you with monsters, but it will stick with you for a different reason—because at its core, it’s about how powerless it feels to be trapped in a system that doesn’t care whether you make it through the night or not.
Visual – 8
Audio – 8
Gameplay – 7
Overall – 7.5
Article By Kevin Austin
