Game Review: Still Wakes the Deep

Still Wakes the Deep is a first-person, psychological horror game developed by The Chinese Room, a Portsmouth-based studio in England and published by Secret Mode. If you’ve played the likes of Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, then you will be familiar with the type of story-driven, first-person experiences the studio is well-regarded for.  Development on Still Wakes the Deep began in 2020 when The Chinese Room co-founder Dan Pinchbeck pitched the idea of “The Thing set on an oil rig” which the team reportedly took to right away.  Despite leaving the studio in 2023, development on the game carried on under the supervision of John McCormack, who prior to being promoted was the games art director. Releasing on June 18th 2024 across PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S, Still Wakes the Deep received moderate praise from critics with OpenCritic listing its average critical score at 76 and the player score at 70. The publisher Secret Mode has not publicly disclosed the sales figures for the game, so interpret from that what you will.

The narrative of Still Wakes the Deep takes place on the Beira D, an oil rig in the North Sea of the coast of Scotland on Boxing Day in 1975. The central protagonist is a Scottish electrician by the name of Cameron McLeary, who is revealed to be working on the rig as a means to escape the attention of the Strathclyde Police after a violent fight sent his opponent to the hospital.  Despite building a strong rapport with the crew and handily applying his trade as an electrician, Cameron is unceremoniously sacked by his boss after he discovers enquiries from the police regarding his presence on the rig. Before Cameron can leave for the mainland however, the oil rig drill hits something which sends tremors through the facility and sends Cameron overboard. After being rescued by a fellow engineer, Cameron awakes to discover the rig has been infested with a mysterious organic substance which has grown up through the drill line.  It soon becomes clear this organic substance is spreading rapidly and is mutating the crew into horrific monsters that Cameron must evade. With the rig breaking apart as the substance continues to spread, its up to Cameron to work with what’s left of the crew to figure out a way to escape the rig before it sinks into the sea.

The narrative portion of Still Wakes the Deep is absolutely amazing, to put it mildly.  Coming from the UK, I absolutely adored how authentic the setting and characters were in reflecting the tone and society of that era of time. The problem with horror stories in general is you know a lot of characters are disposable but very little stories take the time to make you care about the people that die throughout the course of the narrative.  The grounded approach this game takes with its character writing makes these people feel real and that in turn makes their eventual demises all the sadder.  The voice cast are the main contributors towards the serious tone of the story as well; the primarily Scottish cast deliver a phenomenal performance that makes this experience all the more emotional as a result.  The character writing for Cameron alone is deep and emotionally-charged.  You see the regrets he’s run away from on the mainland continuously haunt him throughout the course of the narrative and the writers keep that a consistent focus alongside his fight for survival on the rig. If you aren’t familiar with Scottish actor Alec Newman then I hope this game will serve as a proper introduction for you.  Cameron as a character is defined by Newman’s incredible performance and he puts so much effort into characterizing him through every line of dialogue he mutters. 

From a gameplay perspective, this is where the weaker side of Still Wakes the Deep surfaces from the water. This is a studio well-regarded for producing narrative-led experiences but that also highlights their struggles with realizing fleshed out gameplay ideas. Those flaws are still sadly apparent in this game with how limited your sense of interaction actually is.  Cameron’s primary function in the game will be traversing platforms and running away from the grotesque monsters that plague the rig.  That is pretty much the brunt of what you’ll be doing from start to finish and if you were looking for something more engaging or involved you sadly won’t find that here. If you can look past the limited scope of the gameplay though, you can see how that makes sense in conjunction with the narrative setup.  Cameron isn’t some well-equipped soldier who wants to take these monsters on in a fist fight; he’s a cowardly electrician in way over his head and it’s a miracle he survives from one encounter to the next. I think if you accept the constraints The Chinese Room established, you can come to appreciate their effort to realize the simplistic elements of the gameplay because of it. 

The oil rig is as much of a character in the game as Cameron is, thanks to the rapidly spreading infestation.  The game smartly starts you out in a segment of the game prior to the eruption so you can familiarize yourself with the initial design of the top deck before everything goes to hell. Over the course of the game, you see as the environment shifts in a cruel and ugly way as the organic substance manifests itself into every corner of the rig. The game smartly turns your familiarity with the layout against you as it challenges you to continuously progress as the environment challenges you. I appreciate once again that navigating the environment is all you will be doing and I would understand if you feel that’s a criticism of the games lack of proper design but for what this experience is trying to be, I still feel The Chinese Room do their very best to realize the important elements that keep the gameplay and narrative on track.

On the presentation side of things, it’s another example of the stellar rendering detail of Unreal Engine 5.  The Chinese Room put in pain-staking detail when it came to reflecting the authenticity of a UK oil rig in the way they researched and designed these environments to be as period-accurate as possible. Mix that with the repulsive design of the organic substance and the way it corrupts these already cold and unwelcoming environments, you just can’t help but come out of the game appreciating how much effort they went to visualize this experience in the most horrific way possible. It’s the monster designs that really stick out for me though as you can clearly see the inspiration from The Thing come out in the way these things look. The humanity of the hosts is still trapped within the creatures and the audio design and visual design work in unison to make these creatures something truly otherworldly, yet showcase a glimmer of the real person they used to be; it’s tragically horrific and works so well. Jason Graves served as the composer for the game too and I just wanted to shout out his work here as his score really goes a long way in setting the hopeless and oppressive tone.

I’m not going to pretend Still Wakes the Deep is perfect, I’ll acknowledge the lack of gameplay and the short length of the game is a valid issue that I won’t discredit anyone for having with the game.  For me though, everything else this game does makes up for that flaw in monumental fashion.  When this game isn’t scaring the absolute crap out of you, it breaking your heart in some truly astounding ways. The narrative for me is one of the best narratives I’ve experienced in a video game so far this year, while simplistic in nature it’s the grounded performances from the voice cast and superb writing that really cement this as a horror experience that wants to be taken seriously.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐