Don’t read this

Management doesn’t like self-referential things. It just reminds them they’re a simple strapline-based comedy construct of Christopher Livingston.

Brace yourself for the most sarcastic sequence in videogame history.

You’ll never have given much thought to the “skip dialogue” button in a videogame, but after playing The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe you won’t stop thinking about it. The button (it’s a physical button in the game world, so you have to be standing in a specific place to use it) is just one of several new features you can take for a spin in the “expanded reimagining” of 2013’s The Stanley Parable. Once again, stepping into Stanley’s shoes turns the act of playing a game into a hilarious, surprising and at times deeply thoughtful examination of games and game development, players and player choice, and yes, even the consequences of pushing a button.

Let’s get this out of the way early: It feels like a trap to review The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, considering that part of this expanded version takes place in a museum of memories, where the narrator reads aloud from several reviews of the original game. Not just professional reviews from Destructoid and GameSpot, framed and hanging on walls and lit by candlelight (our sister title PC Gamer’s own 90 per cent review is missing), but also Steam user reviews unceremoniously dumped in piles and scattered around a rainy dockyard, including one that suggested a skip dialogue button was needed because the narrator talked a bit too much. It really gives you something to ponder while you’re pressing the new skip dialogue button because the narrator is talking a bit too much.