REVIEW: ‘Still Wakes The Deep’ Is Beautifully Horrific (XSX)

Horror game developers continuously find ways to bring in fresh air to the genre. They craft everything from unique enemy designs, to interesting stories that can’t really be told as well in other genres. In that same way, horror games also have the liberty to explore unique locations that may not be nearly as interesting if adapted to any other medium or style. Still Wakes the Deep, by The Chinese Room and Secret Mode, found a unique twist that shockingly hasn’t been touched on before as a horror setting in gaming, an oil rig. With The Chinese Room’s fantastic aptitude for storytelling, was their exploration of a new, unique horror story successful? Yes, yes it was.

After risking everything, including his family’s relationship and the potential for a new future, Caz McLeary decides to take an electrician job on an offshore oil rig on the coast of 1970s Scotland. It may not be a safe occupation for Caz, but it’s a change of scenery, despite his wife threatening to divorce because of his rash decision-making leaving her alone with a young child. But after a rumbling, which almost kills Caz, he begins to find red flesh across the rig, slowly growing and messing with his head. While he was safe, others weren’t so lucky. So begins Caz and his crewmates’ mission to get off the oil rig alive and survive whatever nightmare has found them from the bottom of the sea.

Still Wakes the Deep’s story is simply excellent. While many horror games jump the shark or the main character gets a little too gung-ho, this one stays true to where it started. Still Wakes the Deep’s story is human from start to finish. It covers real thrills and scares that many of us may face day-to-day, like struggles at home, health issues, and mistreatment at the workplace. Striking the balance between the human aspects of the story and the Lovecraftian supernatural creates something that’s genuinely compelling for the entire playthrough.

Even the enemies, who are superficially terrifying, have a way of pulling at your heartstrings as you’re exposed to them more and more. Each threat is rooted in each character’s deep-seated issues like jealousy, greed, envy, or fear of being left behind. They’re all a great counterbalance to Caz, who must fight his inner demons to not be turned into a similar monster.

What really helps here is how the slow start to the game lets you take your time and meet these same people who Caz has to either survive with or avoid at all costs later on. You learn of their issues, what makes them human, and sometimes even how they differ or how some are antagonistic to each other. And that humanizing aspect makes some portions of the game all the more terrifying emotionally.

All this is driven by exploring a super-detailed oil rig. There’s so much to just stop and look at. Even as the chaos begins and pieces fall apart, you’re left helping Caz explore basically a metal death trap. Where the true beauty peeks through is how the fleshy supernatural beings slowly overtake the craft, too.

Slowly, as the game progresses, environments change. The mess of metal gets overtaken by bloody red flesh and a mix of bodies to create an unknown that is heart and gut-wrenching at the same time. This being that grows throughout the rig is almost beautiful… if it wasn’t for the reminders of the faces you see growing out of the walls, they used to be coworkers that Caz knew. Even then, on their own, without the human flesh, the otherworldly structures look like nature, overtaking a once-used area. It seems into the cracks and the crevices and grows into a grand, almost-natural design.

The gameplay, however, is a little too simplistic. Controlling Caz is simple. Nothing really new is introduced, save for a flashlight later on, that wasn’t shown in the first bit of the game. Which is great. It sticks to Caz being just an electrician who found himself in the middle of a nightmare. But as the game progresses, that simplicity does get a little stale. The game is very linear, so you may start picking up patterns and knowing what to expect. Caz is jumping onto a swinging or loose object? He will most likely slip, and you’re about to have to use the left trigger to grab on to save him.

For the most part, Caz’s journey is mostly chill, except for the sounds of the rig falling apart and monsters making known that they could be near. Their howls and screams can be heard from a distance at times, letting you know that you could be entering their territory soon and will have to avoid them. But even then, when there are foes nearby, being stealthy to get around them isn’t difficult. I think I got noticed twice in my playthrough, and that was because of scripted moments that made one of the creepies notice me.

I could be playing overly cautiously because I absolutely loathe chase sequences, but mechanics like hiding in lockers or throwing objects to distract something were rarely, if ever, used. Plus, when taking a moment to scope out an area something inhabits, you can very quickly identify a correct path to crouch through to get to where you need to go. In that way, the actual threats feel toned down or oversimplified.

In a similar way, the puzzles also feel a little too simplistic while also fitting well into Caz’s path. They tend to feel too samey as the game progresses. Thankfully, nothing really spells out what to do step-by-step-wise. There will be clear instructions on a placard, like what you’d find on a plane or boat safety card, and that’s about it. You just need to be sure to follow those instructions and what exactly they’re saying to do to complete a task or puzzle. There’s no overt complexity to a task—feeling very down to earth. But that also means if you’ve done a task once and it asks you to do it again later on, you will be doing the same exact actions, which, in different settings, feels a little dull.

But what does feel real is Caz and the crew’s desperation as everything worsens. Areas may be revisited, requiring you to do similar things; it’s the way the areas evolve, requiring more of you to get through them, that works well. One place may be pristine initially, but later on, it could be flooded, and you’ll need to swim through oil or seawater full of bodies to find that next breath of air. Nothing ever feels impossible, but the pressure adding on makes those moments stressful in really fun ways.

Still Wakes the Deep nails exploring a unique setting while finding ways to tell a compelling story. While enemies aren’t always a risk if you play it very cautiously, they are still terrifying. On top of building out a mystery that continuously ups the ante after every twist and turn, you will feel attached to Caz and want to see him succeed and get home to his family. Still Wakes the Deep should be a can’t-miss for die-hard horror fans.

Still Wakes the Deep is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X & S, and PC.