Still Wakes the Deep Review

I am notorious for my dislike of so-called walking simulators; it’s not that I hate the concept itself, Gone Home is one of my favourite examples of organic storytelling, but I often find examples of the genre to be boring, pretentious, or simply portrayed in the wrong form of media. For these reasons I dreaded setting out to sea with Still Wakes the Deep, hoping against hope that this would be the one to sell me on the genre as a whole.

Things did not get off to a good start as the opening credits touted The Chinese Room as the developer. Being the studio behind the game that, in my mind, exemplifies the problems with walking simulators, Dear Esther, I feared the worst. However, I always try to give things the benefit of the doubt so I hopped into the shoes of Cameron “Caz” McLeary with the intent to enjoy.

What better start to a day than breakfast with the lads?

Set in 1975, we find ourselves working on the Beira D oil rig some ways off the Scottish coast. Our seemingly rowdy past catches up with us, as the police have contacted our boss about some of our previous misbehaviour on the mainland. Fearing our upcoming unemployment, we meet up with our long-time friend and chef, Roy, while also taking in both the crew of the Beira, and the relationships therein. Seemingly, Caz is a man of the people but disliked by the administration. Finally, we set off to face the music and get our verbal behinds handed to us by Reddick, the self-proclaimed king of the Rig, who promptly fires us and sends us on our way, bickering with someone on the phone about drilling through an obstruction… which is when things go awry.

The beginning portion of the game does a great job of conveying the situation on the rig while also familiarising us with the controls and mechanics of the game. We wander the rig, find out whom we like and who is a nasty lemon, and see the many areas we will later be visiting. It also does a good job of painting a picture of our main character, an amiable guy with anger issues, good with the ‘leccy (which I assume is electricity?), but bad with authority. It also very clearly paints a few “villains” in our minds, as the comically greedy rig boss literally calls himself king. But, as most of these stories go, disaster strikes soon after Caz is sacked, as the aforementioned “obstruction” turns out to be some kind of eldritch entity made out of living flesh, oil, and tissue.

Moments before the disaster, the rig looks kinda... nice?

What follows this disastrous move is a tale of horror and survival, as Caz attempts to rescue his crewmates while also securing a way out of the rig and back to his wife and family. Giving Cthulhu an unwanted piercing, it seems, has disastrous consequences as this entity envelops its way throughout the rig, capturing anyone it touches and changing them into grotesque Cronenbergian monstrosities. Anything and everything goes wrong as Caz battles his way to apparent escape time and time again, forcing the lad to delve into the depths of the rig to buy more time before the whole thing sinks with them.

It’s a gripping narrative and The Chinese Room has done a fantastic job of capturing the blue-collar camaraderie one could expect from a bunch of Scots working a dangerous job. The voice acting work in the game is stellar in general, though the performance of Caz, by Alec Newman, was especially good, with many heartfelt, heart-wrenching, and funny deliveries throughout. I may be biased though, as I love me a good Scottish accent. Still Wakes the Deep also does a fantastic job at creating a truly unnerving ambience, as you often find yourself hearing the almost-human keening of one or more creatures in the distance, reminding you how you were chatting with them only a few moments prior.

That's one way to describe him, sure.

Mechanically, the game is very basic. You can walk or run around, interact with certain objects and people, and are able to climb some ladders and edges if the game deems it acceptable via the dreaded Yellow Paint of Progress. Later on in the game, you are able to pick up and throw items to distract slithering blobbies and you can duck into vents or pipes to escape them if chased. There are very few puzzles in the game sans a few “press things in the right order” sections and most interactions require you to perform a slow-time event, wherein you pick a lock, hold on to a ledge, or operate a machine. It’s nothing new or exciting, but it does the job well enough, especially for a more-narrative-focused experience.

So, the characters are good and the mechanics are basic but adequate, but what about the story? A good walking simulator lives and dies on how gripping the story is and how well the game can keep the player immersed in its world. Still Wakes the Deep seemed to be doing a decent job at this, as I moved from set piece to set piece. Sure, it was linear, but exemplars of the genre often are, so it’s not really an issue. However, an issue arose as soon as I stopped. As I met my second encounter with a ghastly ghoul, I made a mistake that got my enemy de jure to notice me (props to the game for actually punishing players for making noise), which sent the music into overdrive and me rushing for the exit. I found the way forward, squeezed through a gap in the wall and was ready to keep going when I noticed the creature… gave up? I looked back and there he was, all limbs and flesh squiggling about on the other side of the gap. What felt like a somewhat tense situation was suddenly just silly.

Good thing I'm safe in this very open gap!

Once I noticed this theme, I couldn’t keep from noticing it. Suddenly the appearance of a distraction object signalled an upcoming encounter, I knew I could escape the monsters in any old space nearby, even into spaces they themselves have slithered through previously. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but as soon as I stopped and looked, the facade crumbled somewhat and removed any and all horror the game had to offer. This same feeling transferred onto the game as I began to notice the railroad tracks the game had me on. Doors were inexplicably locked in an oil rig, the next objective always being a convenient labyrinth away, and iron gates not being openable, despite Caz being explicitly ordered to kick one open as they are cheaply made. The worst offenders, however, were the moments where the gameplay undercut the seriousness of the game’s story itself.

For example, early on Caz is finding his way higher into the rig, when he discovers the body of his coworker on the ladder up. Whereas the voice acting conveys Caz’s anguish well, in-game he simply boops his erstwhile friend off of the ladder and happily climbs on. Another flabbergasting moment is when our friend, Roy, needs to have a breather due to his diabetes acting up. He tells us to get going and he’ll barricade the door behind us to remain safe. Ok, fair enough. The problem is, once we find our way out through a vent in the freezer, we can double back and… open the door. Great job, buddy.

Much like the frights of the game, the game doesn't always quite hold up to inspection graphically

Now, one may correctly assume that I came out of this adventure feeling down on the game, as the issues mentioned really did do a number on the experience. However, to my surprise, I still found myself gripped by the story. Not because of the whole alien creature making pork pies out of everyone, but due to the interplay of the characters. Caz is not a generic hero doing everything without complaint but is visibly (or audibly, I guess?) traumatised by the events and struggles with his own sanity while escaping the literal nightmares of the rig. More often than not, he flat-out refuses to go back out of safe places until his surviving coworkers talk him into it. He tries to make jokes with his mates and does make mistakes trying to rescue those important to him, making him both sympathetic and relatable. To me, that was enough to see me through the whole game and even left me satisfied with the story as a whole.

There is one more factor we do need to discuss, however. The price, which at the time of writing, is sitting at about £30. Playing through at a leisurely pace and having a proper gander at all the locations, I clocked in about four and a half hours on completion, though I did miss some achievements. Though I personally dislike valuing games based on pounds-per-hour, I do believe the game to be on the shorter side for said price tag, especially since the game does fail somewhat in creating the horrific atmosphere it was going for. However, I do think it’s definitely worth playing for the journey of Caz if nothing else. This may be one to get once on sale.

Credit where credit is due, sometimes the game is absolutely stunning

To summarise my thoughts, Still Wakes the Deep succeeds in creating both a wonderful cast of characters that will have you hankering for an Irn-Bru before you know it and a truly unnerving bit of ambience in its quieter moments. However, the magic quickly runs out if you happen to peek behind the mirror, resulting in a great character story mired in a somewhat generic and needlessly gory B-movie. While I do recommend checking it out and playing it in Scots Gaelic (massive props for adding that, Chinese Room), it may not be worth the price of admission.