The Stanley Parable

The player has a first-person perspective, and can travel and interact with certain elements of the environment, such as pressing buttons or opening doors, but has no combat or other action-based controls. The narrator presents the story to the player. He explains that the protagonist Stanley is employee 427 in an office building. Stanley is tasked to monitor data coming from a computer screen and press buttons appropriately without question. One day, the screen monitoring data goes blank, which has never happened before. Stanley, unclear on what to do, begins to explore the building and discovers that the workplace is totally abandoned.

At this stage, the story splits off in numerous possibilities, based on the player's choices. When the player comes to an area where a choice is possible, the player can opt to follow the narrator's directions or perform the opposing action. The initial decision is a set of two open doors. The narrator notes that Stanley traveled through the leftmost door, but this has not yet occurred. The narrator takes the player's choices into account, reacting with new narration or attempts to return the player back to the target path if he is contradicted. For example, if the player were to follow the narrator's directions and pass through the leftmost door, the story of the missing employees proceeds. Alternatively, the player can choose the rightmost door, causing the narrator to adjust his story. In this case, he will urge the player to return to the "proper" path, although the player can continuously disobey the narrator, resulting in other adjustments to the story. In some instances, the narrator breaks the fourth wall when reacting to the player's decisions. In the original 2011 mod, there were six different endings. Wreden stated it would take about an hour for the player to experience them all. The 2013 remake added more than ten endings, altered some pre-existing endings and the respective routes to trigger them, as well as several Easter eggs, and other choice-related aspects. Ultra Deluxe will expand on the game's endings further.