In our upcoming genre-bending simulator, The Lift, players step into the shoes of a handyman and attempt to renovate an abandoned research facility riddled with the supernatural. We at Fantastic Signals have been working on this game for four years, and we’re excited to finally bring it to the PlayStation community.
I’m Ivan Slovtsov, studio director at Fantastic Signals, and I’m excited to tell you more about The Lift, where we’re blending an intriguing sci-fi story with addictive handyman sim gameplay. In addition to our brand new trailer, I’ll share some insights into what makes our supernatural handyman simulator tick and what you’ll experience when it launches on PS5 in 2027.
In The Lift, you play as a Keeper: a resourceful handyman tasked with restoring the Institute, a massive research facility that was abandoned after a mysterious catastrophic incident. In the process, you will uncover a mind-boggling conspiracy that left the Institute in ruins, and bring the facility back to its former glory with your trusty toolbox.
With The Lift, we want to combine the satisfying gameplay of first-person “repairman” games (think House Flipper or PowerWash Simulator) with the deep storytelling and interconnected systems of immersive sims like Prey.
Our team has previously worked on titles such as Pathologic 2 and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and we’re bringing this narrative and worldbuilding prowess to create a truly memorable story-driven adventure.
The Lift draws heavy influence from the works of the Strugatsky brothers, who were prolific Soviet science fiction authors. Their iconic novel, Roadside Picnic, inspired the “New Weird” literary movement and many fantastic games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Pacific Drive, Death Stranding, Disco Elysium, and Control.
While we absolutely adore Roadside Picnic, The Lift instead turns to another book by the Strugatskys – Monday Starts on Saturday, a witty satire of the bureaucratic autocracy that explores the resourcefulness and grit of the human mind.
In The Lift, we’re telling a story of brilliant people who achieve the impossible together, set in a retrofuturistic world where the most unimaginable, fantastical things have become the norm—studied and ‘solved’ by the scientific community.
Your goal is to get the Institute back online by restoring its five major areas: the Post Office, the Communication Center, the Archive, the Library, and the Reactor. The titular lift is your elevator-turned-HQ used to travel across the facility, craft items, and unlock new gear to enter previously inaccessible areas. You can also customize it with countless decoration items found in the Institute to make it your own cozy base of operations.
As you revive the Institute, you will face a myriad of restoration tasks that only a master engineer can tackle. From fixing furniture, vacuuming cosmic goo, and rewiring electromechanical grids to awakening a sentient reactor, triangulating an interdimensional signal with a satellite dish, and operating a massive computing mainframe. There’s a lot of work to do! As you progress, you’ll unlock new tools and meet a cast of quirky characters who will help unveil the mystery behind the Institute’s demise.
We can’t wait for the PlayStation community to experience The Lift. Our passionate team has been pouring everything into this world, and we hope players will enjoy utilizing the unique and strange tools available to them as they unravel the many curiosities.
At launch, The Lift will support a variety of features across PlayStation 5 consoles, including DualSense controller haptics, adaptive triggers, and enhanced graphics on PS5 Pro, when it releases on PlayStation 5 in 2027. Stay tuned, as there’s a lot more of the Institute left to uncover.