Still Wakes the Deep drills into brilliant Scottish horror – Review – WGB

An oil rig is not the most forgiving environment at the best of times, yet that is exactly where Still Wakes the Deep, the newest game from The Chinese Room, takes place. As my father told me, it’s a gigantic machine and everything is there to service that fact. The human component is more of a grudging allowance, a maze of ladders, corridors and stairways tucked in and bolted on wherever possible. It can make getting around a confusing mess because a seemingly simple journey to a location you can see just over there actually involves several ladders, an elevator, multiple doors and a couple of gangways to reach. The long weeks offshore are gruelling, tiring work onboard a metal monster.

In other words, it’s the perfect setting for a horror game, located just off the Scottish coast in the freezing cold of the North Sea. It’s remote and isolated, and because it’s set in 1975 there isn’t a mobile phone in sight, nor an Internet connection. Help will arrive eventually but it isn’t coming fast. And to top it all off, the place is a health and safety nightmare, the builders having cut corners wherever they could. It’s not like the rig’s boss Rennick is any better: he’s a bit of a twat-bag. In the intro alone I spy a few gates clearly displaying signs to keep them clear of anything, and sure enough on the other side is a pile of crates rendering the gate useless. Good job on making the death trap even deadlier, Rennick.

Caz, then, is playing the role of the everyman thrust into an insane situation beyond his comprehension. He doesn’t want to be on the rig but isn’t willing to face the consequences of his actions, either. Still, he’s mostly managed to make friends with the rag-tag, gruff Scottish crew. And its here that I have to admit a small bias: I’m Scottish born and raised, and Still Wakes the Deep is a very Scottish game featuring heavy accents, all my favourite slang and plenty of swearing, including one of our most beloved words: cunt. There’s a whole scale for that word, from a good cunt (like a pal, friend or good person) to a bad cunt (like a proper bastard, idiot or horrible person).

It’s a damn good rendition of Scotland, too. The voice actors do a terrific job, especially Alec Newman, a Glaswegian lad who plays Caz, imbuing our unlikely hero (?) with a rough charm. As the insanity builds, Newman plays a convincing man trying to cope with things that just can’t be coped with. Also, a shout out to Scottish comedian Karen Dunbar who plays the one and only female worker on the rig, Finlay, a large woman who doesn’t put up with anyone’s shite.

It’s a little bit of a shame that over the game’s short runtime of 4-6 hours there isn’t more time to actually interact with the crew. The strong voice work and the strength of the script could have led to some strong connections to everyone else besides just Caz, including Caz’s brother-in-law Roy, although even in his limited screen time Shaun Dooley paints Roy as a loving bloke who wants the best for his sister and is genuinely trying to help Caz be a better man.

Still Wakes the Deep keeps an admirable reign on its unspeakable horrors, eking things out in a reasonably slow burn that gradually ratchets up the tension. The first 20 or 30 minutes are spent just walking the rig, getting to meet fellow crew members and learning the very basic mechanics of opening doors and climbing ladders. Mechanically, speaking, this is largely a walking-sim style game with very linear paths to follow, and for some people that’s going to be an immediate turn-off. I don’t mind that kind of game though, and Still Wakes the Deep keeps you on your toes.

The action kicks off when the oil rig drills into something mysterious on the ocean floor. At first, Caz is simply battling the terrifying but relatively mundane disaster that has occurred. Whatever the rig hit has caused severe damage, although big boss Rennick is busy yelling over the speakerphone that it’s not a problem and everyone should just get back to work – a bit tricky when pieces of walkway are falling into the sea, pal. Caz might just be in the charge of the leccy (electricity) but it’s all hands on deck to deal with the chaos.

Things gradually become more sinister though, as it becomes apparent that whatever the hell is lurking at the bottom of the sea has risen, though exactly what it may be is unclear. Hints at what is going on are slowly introduced, and you can’t help but note the ominous option to use a locker as a hiding place as you pass by. The rig is slowly overtaken by pulsing tendrils and oozing masses that seem to have an organic nature, their “blood” being the very same oil Caz and his mates are enduring the North Sea to suck up. Getting near the stuff triggers weird on-screen effects and seems to get into people’s heads, including Caz occasionally hearing voices.

I want to describe the actual horrors that Caz ends up having to evade and flee from, but I’m worried it might spoil too much to reveal them. Suffice to say, Still Wakes the Deep draws heavily on quite a few classic horror movies, namely Stephen Carpenter’s The Thing. It also takes inspiration from classic body horror, as well as some Lovecraftian elements in the sense that Caz is dealing with something that is, from his limited perspective, completely overwhelming and unknown. The horrific designs that the developers have conjured up are truly sickening to bear witness too, aided by equally terrifying sound design.

A lot of the scare factor vanishes when you interact with these monsters though. Most of the time you’re either dodging between hiding spots and using the occasional thrown object as a distraction, or you’re running away like my wuss of a German Shepard runs away from sheep. While both hiding and fleeing tonally match up with Caz’s aversion to facing his problems head-on, neither are very exciting. The sections where the monsters can show up are obvious, so the rest of the time you can jog around the rig with zero fear, and the hiding sections are a breeze to complete unless you’re completely stupid. The monster will move around and can be easily distracted by tossing a handy can or wrench, and even if you’re spotted as you dive into a hiding spot the monster will give up after a minute or so and go back to patrolling. The running sections are just as easy, so once the initial excitement and fear from the first escape has died down the rest are less intense.

Admittedly, though, these problems are pretty standard for the genre as a whole. In video games even more so than movies, the more you interact with the horror the less scary it tends to become.

After a while, the game introduces a new type of horror, albeit a far more normal one: the rising water. As the rig undergoes more and more assaults upon its structure, the freezing cold North Sea begins to seep in, adding one more thing for Caz to deal with. He’s a fairly decent swimmer and can even grab onto beams and then surge forward with a tap of a button. These moments of madness as the water rushes in add some extra excitement, but the games first-person view combined with the dark waters and tight spaces can make these segments annoying to navigate. I barely ever died to the supernatural horrors, but I did drown a few times because I couldn’t quite figure out where the game wanted me to go.

Figuring out where to go the rest of the time isn’t an issue. Presumably worried that the metal mass of the oil rig could prove confusing, The Chinese Room is very careful to only ever give you a path forward, all other routes carefully blocked off by locked doors, barricaded gates, ongoing work and other nonsense. And then there’s the judicious use of yellow paint to indicate things that can be climbed, interacted with or otherwise navigated. In fairness to the developer, it makes a bit more sense in this environment that it does in other games where yellow paint is conveniently splattered on cliffsides to indicate handholds.

Speaking of getting around the place and admiring the often disturbing scenery, Still Wakes the Deep is a looker. Well, not in the traditional sense because even when the rig isn’t on fire and being assaulted by some sort of abomination from under the ocean waves it’s just a big mass of metal. But it’s impressive in its level of detail and its lighting. I got my dad who actually did work oil rigs in the North Sea in the 80s and 90s (usually doing crazy shit because health and safety was, at best, entirely optional) to take a look and he was impressed with the replica that The Chinese Room has created.

Truthfully, if you’re even a passing fan of horror then Still Wakes the Deep doesn’t hit any beats you aren’t familiar with, right down to a nebulous ending that’s going to feel irritating to anyone who likes some solid answers. However, it executes all of those beats extremely well, delivering a tight, well-acted experience that doesn’t outstay its welcome. If you like a bit more freedom and favour gameplay over all else, it’s probably not for you, but otherwise, Still Wakes the Deep is creepy, immersive and delightful.