Summary
Many of my favourite games fall under the loose genre of “a guy has a really bad day”. Dead Space puts Isaac Clarke in a series of alien-infested spaceships, Uncharted has Nathan Drake falling off everything, and Left 4 Dead has more plane crashes and broken-down cars than zombies.
Still Wakes The Deepfalls firmly into this category, with an oil rig rapidly falling into the sea. It’s got the gore, it’s got the explosions, it’s got the swearing, it’s got the monsters. But this isn’t just a mindless survival horror hoping to step on Dead Space’s coattails – it’s an incisive masterclass in game narrative you owe it to yourself to experience.
Set in 1975, Still Wakes The Deep puts you in the rubber wellies of Caz, a man fleeing his chaotic home life to work aboard the Beira, an oil rig in the North Sea. Before you know it, things go a bit Dead Space-meets-the-Poseidon Adventure, as the rig begins to sink and mutated crew mates try to tear apart anyone still living.
Still Wakes The Deep shares a lot in common with The Chinese Room’s last major game, the superbEverybody’s Gone To The Rapture. They’re both deeply voyeuristic experiences that have you pry into the histories of every character you encounter, using a sense of British nostalgia to contrast with the horror of what’s happening.
A poster of Barnsley F.C., a prim and proper shipping forecast announcement, a crew bunk done up with the tackiest decorations the 70s had to offer; these all help build the Beira up to feel like a real environment full of people worth caring about before things go to hell.
It’s a game about ego, class, masculinity, violence, religion, and isolation, but it never feels overstuffed or at odds with the survival at its core.
Above all else, it’s the characters that really make Still Wakes The Deep. Realistically written and performed by a fantastic cast that includes big names like Neve McIntosh and Shaun Dooley. The crew are more than just bags of meat that fall victim to monsters. Otherwise throwaway personalities have depth to them too – especially if you take the time to snoop in their bunks and have a mooch.
The monsters you encounter are engaging beyond pure spectacle (which, don’t get me wrong, is grotesquely impressive). They could’ve so easily been nothing more than spooky creatures to run away from, but I found myself hiding in vents just so I could listen to them mutter and mumble to themselves as they paced around. I wanted to understand them better, in the same way I’d connected with the crew just a few hours earlier.
In a few choice moments, Still Wakes The Deep manages to channel the likes of Alien: Isolation and Amnesia in the intensity of its stealth sections. Tucked away in an air vent as an enemy slithers by inches away from you is a thrill.
Much like Everybody’s Gone to The Rapture, Still Wakes The Deep is a minimally interactive “walking simulator”. It isn’t quite a traipse through rural Shropshire, as the tighter confines of the Beira and its more immediate threat of disembowelment do force you into light stealth and rudimentary platforming here and there, but for the most part, you’ll be walking from objective to objective and having the story unfold before you.
For plenty of people, this is going to be an immediate turn-off. It’s a short game, taking me just over four hours to finish, and you don’t do a whole lot. The most interactive element is being able to pick up and throw objects to distract the monsters. There’s a lot of climbing upyellow-painted ledgesand turning yellow-painted bulkhead handwheels and, while the game isn’t long enough for this to outstay its welcome, it manages to simultaneously feel like not enough ‘gaminess’ for some, and too much for everyone else.
Still Wakes The Deep is The Chinese Room’s story crafting at its best. It’s a game you’ll want to go through a few times just to fully digest, as each character, each line of dialogue, and each new environment manages to pull closer together the game’s themes with expert execution. It’s a game about ego, class, masculinity, violence, religion, and isolation, but it never feels overstuffed or at odds with the survival at its core. Long after I’ve put it down, I’m finding new angles to perceive it from and reevaluating my time aboard the Beira.
This is The Chinese Room’s best game yet. It has the bombastic set pieces, unflinching gore, and intense stealth sequences that make it a harrowing experience that deserves to stand alongside other games about guys having really bad days. But it also offers a well-paced, meaty narrative with excellent performances that I’m going to be chewing on for months to come.
Reviewed On PC
WHERE TO PLAY
Still Wakes the Deep is a psychological horror game from The Chinese Room. You have to escape the collapsing Beira D oil rig, all while dealing with a terrifying supernatural entity.
