The award-winning studio, The Chinese Room known for Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is back for another fantastic adventure. This time they send us to the coast of Scotland aboard an oil rig that’s unearthed something spooky. You’ll meet a cast of Scottish characters that are truly a delightful bunch, even in the face of death. Travel through each part of the oil rig, searching for a way out. Can you escape before the supernatural presence infesting the ship takes you too?
Still Wakes The Deep is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S for $34.99. It’s worth noting that Still Wakes The Deep will release day one on Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC.
Story – Horror on the Coast of Scotland
The Chinese Room delivers a fantastic tale of terror centred around an oil rig on the coast of Scotland. You play as Caz a crewmember of the Beria D. During a typical workday, the whole place shakes, tossing Caz overboard. Waking up later, he discovers something supernatural has begun to infest the entire rig. You’ll journey through all parts of the rig, searching for a way off while discovering how bad the situation has gotten. Of course, they’re not alone, horrifying abominations lurk in the shadows, ready to take your life. Still Wakes The Deep felt similar to the horror classic The Thing with how the supernatural horror worked. As a massive fan of body horror, seeing the presence quickly take over the rig, made me interested in where it came from.
Something deadly lurks in the mist
In the opening, you meet most of the crew you’ll be interacting with throughout the story. It’s brief but enough time is taken to get to know them before the horrific events begin. Afterwards, the story becomes a tale of constant dread, every ounce of hope decreasing with every objective completed. But just like Caz, I would persevere through the terror and keep moving forward. Most horror games falter around the halfway point, but Still Wakes The Deep, kept upping the ante and gives a satisfying conclusion. The creatures that you’ll come across are fantastic abominations that remind me of Carrion crossed with The Thing. There was only a few enemy designs but I loved them all. Every time the story demanded me to return to Engineering, fear filled my chest for what was to come. It’s been a while since a horror game has been able to accomplish this.
Characters & Dialogue – The Crew of The Beira D
From the very beginning, the story immersed me in its characters and their relatable conversations and personalities. The protagonist Caz is a fun charismatic guy who just wants to see his family again. I felt for his need to fix the wrongs he’s done and for his worries surrounding his friends and family. Speaking of Caz’s friends, there are many characters in Still Wakes The Deep, though only a few get bigger roles in the story whether they play as survivors of the event or one of the many victims.
Meet the crew of the Beira D on a lovely day of work
Stand-out characters were Roy, Finlay, and Brodie. Roy (favourite character) is Caz’s best mate and the rig’s cook. The dialogue exchanged between them was a wonderful mix of fun banter and heartfelt moments. During the game, you have to abandon him to find a way out for you both. Every time I returned to him, I would fear that I’d see him taken by the supernatural presence. Finlay was the first character introduced besides Caz, alongside being the only female on the rig. She’s headstrong, funny, and helpful throughout, giving Caz instructions on what to do. Was very happy to see her sticking around for most of the game. Brodie is another crew member that you mostly hear through the phone. He’s mostly giving you tasks to do but like with Roy, the dialogue is great and shows that humor is needed even in the darkest times.
Gameplay – Surviving In Isolation
Most horror games tend to provide a lack of complicated controls. Still Wakes The Deep is no stranger to this, with Caz only able to crouch, sprint, jump, and interact with things. You play in a first-person perspective, traversing through the horrors completing objectives and small puzzles. The game provides two difficulties, Standard and Story. The Standard mode is the traditional way to play while Story offers an easier experience. As you traverse through the game, more tools will be available that help in future situations.
Use your trusty screwdriver to open vents
One aspect of the gameplay that I didn’t enjoy was the swimming portions of Still Wakes The Deep. Yes, they succeeded in grasping the fear of drowning and the darkness of the deep. However, the controls were just not fun to use and on occasion due to some of the button prompts not working as intended, I’d drown a few times, sending me back to the start of the checkpoint. Beyond these areas, I had quite a good amount of fun with the rest of the game.
Tools of The Trade
After the event, you gain a headlamp that attaches to your hard hat. Luckily it’s one of the good torches in horror games unlike the many that falter. I could easily get around whether in dark corridors or underwater. You get a screwdriver, used to open up vents and tinker with fuseboxes. Occasionally, you’ll use fire extinguishers to put out fires that block your path. Finally, during stealth sections, there are throwable items to pick up that can distract enemies. Speaking of stealth gameplay, most encounters require hiding from enemies using vents or places where the enemy can’t get you. One option, however, is a locker but strangely there really isn’t a need to use them. Throughout the game, there were plenty of other places to go and I always had a throwable item ready to use. This made me question why they were included to begin with.
Find an assortment of items like bottles, hard hats, and yes a can of corned beef to distract enemies
Graphics & Audio – Cosmic Horror’s From The Deep
What impressed me about Still Wakes The Deep was the art design. The Chinese Room certainly aimed for realism with the locale of the Beira D. Everything looked gorgeous throughout with no area feeling unoriginal, from its dark and creepy rooms down in Engineering to the Silent Hill-esque fog covering the Upper Decks. As the story went on, the environment would change as you revisited areas displaying how bad the supernatural presence had gotten. Revisiting the outside deck while it was foggy was intense, hearing the horrific sounds of one of the creatures hiding within, and then slowly starting to see it in all its glory was spectacular. Going back to body horror, seeing the crew’s grotesque bodies being used as decorations for evolving areas was mesmerising at times. The creative ways The Chinese Room took the human body and altered it like Play-Doh showed how bad the situation was.
Just like with the visuals, the audio is a treat too. When running from enemies and hearing them screech behind you, the soundtrack goes hard. The general sounds of each creature were great, the moaning and shouting of dialogue from the transformed crewmate was terrifying. One moment that stuck with me, was in the laundry room with the transformed Trots. The combination of Trot’s actions being covered by the sound of the radio brought an atmosphere that I hadn’t felt in a horror game for a while. Even the first creature interaction set the game’s atmosphere perfectly. It created an intense encounter in Engineering that involved hearing the creature rather than seeing it.
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- Explore dark and flooded areas of the oil rig with your trusty headlamp
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- What could be going on behind that door?
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- What has been unleashed onto the crew of the Beira D?
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- Watch as the supernatural presence takes over the entire rig
Still Wakes The Deep was reviewed on the PS5 with a review code provided by Secret Mode.
