There’s something deeply unsettling about an empty stairwell. Now imagine it stretching endlessly upward, lights flickering, silence pressing in from all sides.
The Stairwell has launched on Xbox Series X|S, challenging players to trust their instincts in a vertical psychological horror experience where a single wrong decision sends you right back to the beginning.
Available now for £4.99, this anomaly-driven horror game from Take IT Studio! asks a simple question: can you tell when something isn’t quite right?
At A Glance
- Game: The Stairwell
- Developer: Take IT Studio!
- Publisher: Take IT Studio!
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S
- Price: £4.99
- Genre: Psychological Horror / Anomaly Loop
Your First Day On The Job
The premise of The Stairwell is deceptively straightforward. It’s your first day working as a security officer in a towering, architecturally mysterious building. Your job? Inspect each floor for strange phenomena.
The twist lies in how you respond.
If everything looks normal, you continue upward. If you spot something unusual – an anomaly – you must turn around and head downstairs immediately. Miss too many irregularities, and your run ends.
That’s it. No weapons. No combat. Just observation, tension, and a growing sense of dread.
Inspired By Anomaly Loop Horror
Players familiar with the minimalist psychological horror of The Exit 8 will recognise the loop-driven structure here. But The Stairwell adds a new dimension – quite literally.
Instead of moving through corridors, you ascend and descend a towering vertical structure of massive scale. Each loop brings new anomalies to discover, with more than 50 strange events hidden across difficulty levels. Importantly, the game tracks which anomalies you haven’t encountered yet, often pushing unseen ones to appear earlier in future attempts.
That design encourages replayability and careful observation rather than brute force memorisation.
Darkness Changes Everything
Difficulty settings allow you to tailor your experience, but for those brave enough, Nightmare Mode removes the safety net entirely.
The lights go out.
Armed only with a candle, you must search for anomalies in near-total darkness. Subtle environmental changes become harder to detect. Shadows play tricks on your perception. Every step feels heavier.
It’s a simple escalation, but one that transforms a tense experience into something genuinely unnerving.
At £4.99, it’s an affordable entry into a very specific strain of psychological horror; one built around observation, memory, and creeping unease rather than action.
Can You Reach The Top?
Now available exclusively on Xbox Series X|S (through an Xbox Store download), The Stairwell invites players into a towering structure filled with subtle horrors and looping dread. Whether you’re hunting all 50 anomalies or testing your nerves in pitch-black Nightmare Mode, this is a horror experience that relies on your attention to detail above all else.
The question is simple.
When something isn’t right… will you notice?
