Still Wakes the Deep Review – Surface-Level Scares

A key ingredient to a successful horror story is a good setting and Still Wakes the Deep, which takes place on a massive deep sea oil rig off the coast of Scotland, has a pretty killer one. The game also has a critically acclaimed, if somewhat divisive, creative team behind it in The Chinese Room, the British developer behind past indie hits such as Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

In other words, Still Wakes the Deep would seem to have quite a bit going for it at first glance. So, does the game successfully tap into its unique setting? Or does it come up dry when it comes to terror?

Set in 1975, Still Wakes the Deep places the player in the boots and slicker of Caz McLeary, a rough-and-tumble Scot who’s shipped off to the isolated North Sea oil rig Beira D after getting into a wee bit of trouble on the mainland. In fact, he seems to have gotten into more trouble and is about to be fired when the rig strikes… something… mysterious at the bottom of the ocean. The exact nature of what besets the rig is never really explained, but suffice to say, it’s soon overgrown with fleshy mind-altering growths, and the crew begins to transform into Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosities straight out of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Caz must find a way to escape the rapidly deteriorating rig while thoughts of the wife and children he left behind frequently intrude on these thoughts.

Given some of the past games The Chinese Room and director Dan Pinchbeck have worked on, you may be expecting Still Wakes the Deep to offer up a deep level of characterization, interesting twists, and/or narrative tricks, but it… never really does. For the most part, this is a straightforward, point-to-point, event-driven story. Go activate the lifeboats! Oh, they’re damaged? Go find the chopper! Oh, it crashed? Go fix the generators… and so on and so forth. Caz has a somewhat sketchy past, but it isn’t really particularly unique or surprising. The game occasionally offers a brief flashback to his life before coming to the rig and I kept expecting them to reveal something more juicy.

Don’t get me wrong, the oil rig setting remains interesting, and all the characters mercilessly ragging on each other in their oatmeal-thick Scottish accents is fun (I think this game may set the record for most uses of the c-word). And yeah, without giving anything away, the game’s final moments will likely tug at your heartstrings, particularly if you’re a dad. That said, overall, I’ll admit I was expecting a bit more from Still Wake the Deep’s narrative.

Still Wake the Deep’s story not being particularly memorable would be a big issue if it were like some of The Chinese Room’s past games, as the studio has, fairly or not, become somewhat synonymous with the “walking simulator” genre. Games like Dear Esther were pretty much all about exploration and story, but that isn’t really the case with The Chinese Room’s latest.

Still Wakes the Deep is more about the moment-to-moment action, and while you’ll be doing more than just walking, things are still relatively simple mechanically as you won’t be wielding any weapons, tools, or inventory items. The game takes place entirely in first person, with Caz running and jumping around the rig to get where he’s going and escape pursuers. The right shoulder button is used to grip onto things (ladders, ledges, etc.), and occasionally, you’ll need to quickly press the left trigger to regain your grip on something. Various levers, valves, and other devices can be interacted with via a combination of button presses and directional inputs. Simple stealth sections ask you to get by tentacled beasties by crouching and sneaking and tossing loose items as distractions. Occasionally, you’ll have to put out a fire with a nearby extinguisher, and later in the game, a fair amount of swimming is foisted on you.

And that’s really it in terms of gameplay. First-person platforming is never going to be ideal, but, for the most part, the game’s controls feel good enough. The stealth mechanics are very limited, but so are the enemies you face – simply scoot from one bit of cover to the next when they’re not looking and you’ll be fine. Unfortunately, things do fall apart a bit when it comes to the underwater swimming sections, which can be disorienting and a bit frustrating.

While Still Wakes the Deep takes place on a large oil rig, don’t expect any sort of Metroidvania-style level design here. The game confines you to a very linear path, with boxes, rubble, fires, and an endless succession of locked doors keeping you from straying. And really, there’s no need to explore anyway, as the game doesn’t have any ammo, healing items, collectibles, or even much in the way of journals or other bits of supplementary info to find.

Finding your route forward can be occasionally frustrating, but usually not, as the game’s devs very clearly signpost where you’re supposed to go. I usually find the debate about “yellow paint” a bit overblown – I think it’s a perfectly legitimate mechanic used sparingly, but Still Wakes the Deep doesn’t use it sparingly. Sometimes, the game almost feels like a parody, a worst-case scenario for people who complain about yellow paint online. I think the makers of Still Wakes the Deep may realize they’ve gone a bit overboard because PR made sure to tell me there will be an update that adds the option to remove much of the yellow paint. That might reduce the razzing this game will get online, but I’m not sure how playable it will be without it. The fact is, this game was clearly designed around the yellow paint, so simply letting people turn it off might not actually improve the experience.

The overuse of yellow aside, this is a solid, but not remarkable-looking, game. There are some visually striking moments when things really go to hell late in the game, but for the most part, this looks like a pretty standard last-gen game despite being built on Unreal Engine 5. Speaking of UE5, the performance issues common to many games built on the engine are also present here. The game’s Fidelity mode feels unplayably sluggish (and I’m usually not a stickler about 30fps gaming) and while Performance mode feels better, it has its share of hiccups.

Despite my complaints in the previous paragraphs, there’s no denying Still Wakes the Deep delivers a good amount of excitement, whether you’re clinging to the underside of the rig in the midst of a raging storm or dashing through ruined corridors with a tentacled beastie on your tail. That said, the extreme linearity of the game ultimately gives the proceedings a straightforward rollercoaster-like feel. Without any player choice or strategy in the mix, there just isn’t all that much tension. And hey, once you’ve seen one writhing mass of flesh and tentacles, you’ve kinda seen them all.

Much like a rollercoaster, this particular ride is also over rather quickly. I rolled credits in around 4 to 5 hours and there isn’t much built-in incentive to play through again, making Still Wakes the Deep’s $35 asking price a bit hard to swallow. While some may be willing to ship off again just to re-experience the ride, I have a feeling most will opt to remain on dry land.

This review was based on a PS5 copy of Still Wakes the Deep provided by publisher Secret Mode.

Still Wakes the Deep

While Still Wakes the Deep offers up its fair share of thrills, railroad-style level design, a short runtime, and a surprisingly superficial story result in an experience that may entertain in the moment, but will likely be forgotten rather quickly. Still Wakes the Deep may well float your boat at a discount, but there are better, scarier fish in the sea.