We were all completely in the dark as to what exactly The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe was going to be. The description said it was a “re-imagining” and, well, that’s not even remotely true. Instead, it’s the original game with a significant amount of new stuff added onto it. This new stuff is, surprisingly, just as good as the original material. It’s pretty much impossible to go into what exactly you can expect to see here without spoilers, so stop reading now if you want to go in fresh. Anyway, the question stands: is The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe worth it, or should this classic have been left alone?
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is still a game about Stanley realizing that everyone in his office has vanished and then contending with a disembodied narrator and a ton of ridiculous ending routes. The entirety of the original game is present here, so if you’ve never played it before, you don’t have to worry about missing out on anything. When you first begin your game, you’ll be asked if you’ve played before. If you answer in the affirmative, you’ll be able to get to the new additions faster.
The new bits make up small changes to the original game, a ton of new endings, and a large slab of pure new material. If you say you’ve played before, a door designated with “New Content” appears after you see a couple of endings. It then leads you into over an hour of new narrator monologues and absolute meta nonsense. A good amount of it satirizes the very idea of expansions such as this, mentioning the new product by name and deriding its additions. You spend a significant amount of time listening to the narrator talk while in a closed room. All you can do is press a button.
Never missin’ a beat, yeah
After finishing the main chunks of new content, you can experience the tiny additions made to the rest of the game. It has six new collectibles, as well as balloons and, most importantly, an item you carry around with you. If you carry this item, there’s not only a ton of new dialogue mentioning it from the narrator, but pretty much every single ending the original offered is changed in some capacity. Functionally, many of these are completely new endings. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe truly does significantly expand the amount of content on offer.
On top of that, it’s often extremely funny. The narrator is in perfect form with The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. I’m convinced the new item you carry was added just to see if the writer could piss him off. It takes a one-note joke and beats the audience over the head with it so overzealously that it ends up breaking into a tiny army of the same joke that just gets funnier and funnier. One of the new endings is possibly the funniest thing in the entire game, as it had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to cramp up.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is absolutely worth it for both returning fans and new players. This is one of the funniest, most unique games you’ll find anywhere. The new content is worthwhile and clearly made with attention and care. Even with new content, this remains a brief experience, but it’s of such high quality that it deserves to be played regardless.
