Still Wakes the Deep (2024)

If you have a bad Christmas, play this game and realize it could have been worse.

It’s a pretty middle-of-the-road experience that would have benefited from a longer stint of ‘normalcy’ at the beginning. The emotional heart (and horror) really could have been far better after getting to know the characters that are in the MC’s life a little better.

If there was a whole normal working day before shit went down, or a pre-rig section (or both) it would have actually had an impact. You only know who half of the important npcs are if you talk to everyone in the short intro section, and bc they’re all wearing the same thing more or less, there’s no real way to easily tell them apart out of a few obvious ones that they shoehorn you into talking to.

On top of that, the gameplay consists of frustrating chase and stealth sections that are creepy but not very fun. You’re supposed to be able to lure them away with throwing shit but they often see you anyway. Chase and stealth sections are usually under 30 seconds long, but if they were any longer it would have sucked bc they catch you in 2 seconds no matter where you are; so even though chases felt anticlimatic, it’s WAY preferable to getting reset 20 times. And the real kicker is honestly the fact that at least on Playstation, the sprint is so finicky and it doesn’t work half of the time. Platforming is basic and fine.

I love the setting and the voice acting. The environments are well done and captivating, and I always give points for documents/posters/shit on billboards actually being legible. 3 stars.

Still Wakes the Deep was a frustrating play for me last spooky season in that I had heard a lot of great things about it that gave me high hopes, but when I played it, I found myself impressed with some aspects of it and really annoyed by others. This is pretty much the perfect example of a game where I can say a lot of good things about it but ultimately disliked it. While I do want to recognize the high points for what they are, if I don't find a game fun and enjoyable, I'm just not going to like it and that was my biggest issue here.

On its positives, a lot about the game is very unique and well-done on paper. Still Wakes the Deep is played from the perspective of Caz McLeary, an electrician on an oil rig in the 1970s. The game is like super Scottish with most of the characters speaking with a strong accent and using lots of lingo and slang you'll have to keep up with. This is one example of how the game is quite immersive with its atmosphere, pulling you in not with one or two colloquialisms of the time and place, but with a cast that feels like they live this experience. You do get the impression that these characters have lives and relationships outside of the game's events with the way they talk to and about each other. I was interested in this premise especially since when I do enjoy walking sim horror games, it's generally for an immersive horror story rooted strongly in a time and place, which this was primed to deliver on.

On the environment side, the game is really gorgeous with some of the best graphics I've seen in a game to date capturing majestic—and frightening—vistas from the heights of our precarious workplace. This immersion is important since the game thrives most on a fairly unique premise: despite being a horror game with lots of supernatural elements, a large part of the horror is simply existence as an expendable worker in a workplace full of inherent hazards. From the beginning it's clear that though Caz sees himself and his co-workers as real people, to company management, they are mere cogs in a machine. This is further reinforced with how, despite the fact there are monstrous horrors throughout—I'm intentionally being vague to avoid spoilers—most of the ways you can die are just from traversing the oil rig's ledges and crawlspaces. I do love the juxtaposition of the beautiful ocean vista from so high up with the very real vertigo and danger of knowing how easy it would be to plunge to your death with any misstep.

So while that all sounds pretty positive and knowing some of it ahead of time had me pretty excited to start the game, I just did not find the game very enjoyable to actually play. For the most part, it just felt like a walking sim with gameplay that was way too minimal: occasional platforming that was more jank than difficult, stealth sections I mostly bypassed by getting impatient and just guessing when to go, and puzzles that amounted to just finding the thing to click on. I think there was some real potential to do some cool immersive puzzles in the game, requiring your character, who is an expert laborer, to do some tasks step-by-step, working the various gear on the rig, a bit like Subnautica achieves immersion by having you flip all the necessary levers and manage your gear and equipment rather than just a simple interaction button prompt. There are even various signs throughout the game instructing you on how to safely operate machinery, which made me think you were going to do this very thing. But at pretty much every opportunity, the game defaults to painfully standard gameplay of walk around, click on the thing, jump the gap, wait till the enemy isn't looking, then go. I've played several walking sims and I usually just keep in mind going in that the gameplay isn't going to be the fun part. But I think this one was harder for me in that it had the potential to be much more than that.

The narrative, while I think it had a good premise, didn't work for me in execution. Despite the fact a big part of the game was supposed to be humanizing these various workers, the way there are so many of them coming and going in such a short game, usually with one segment containing most of their characterization, it weirdly had the opposite effect and made them just feel more like a cast of NPCs. I left the game feeling not like I formed a bond with these guys and I'm now having to mourn those we lost, but like I feel weird because the game expects me to have done so while actively structuring the game so that I won't have a chance to. I'm open to the possibility I just wasn't in the right mood for the game at the time, but I often felt like a lot of the character development and story beats just fell kind of flat for me, especially when put side-by-side with the supernatural elements, which I think detracted from the human side of the story—and vice-versa—rather than acting as effective contrasts and complements.

All in all, I really don't hate this game, but despite my best efforts, I just couldn't get into it. I did finish it and think there was a lot that had potential, but in execution, it just didn't work for me. I often tend to gravitate towards the aspects I like about a game and as long as the parts I don't like don't get in their way, I can still enjoy a game I have a lot of problems with. However, with Still Wakes the Deep, this is another example where "boredom" is just too big of an issue for me to enjoy what I do like about the rest of it.

Really loved the game and what it showed, but i'd like to more from a deeper or detailed perspective about the background story what caused the happenings because i missed these details.

The atmosphere and the art-style is really great and loved that creative vision how they used the body horror elements what we see. The story is short and the walk through isn't longer than 5-6 hours...so maybe the steam price is higher than it should be...but with Gamepass it's totally worth the time and money to give a chance.

From last year for me the Indika was the top-tier horror experience. That's why i don't give 5 star to this, but it is a really decent game: 8/10

This is a walking sim with a little Soma/Outlast/Amnesia mixed in. But only in small doses and very clearly indicated.

It makes it so it is never scary but in those chase sequences full of tension. Otherwise it is dour and ponderous in mood.

I thought the story was interesting but not emotionally engaging, at least, for me personally.

I am kind of iffy on it as those hide-and-seek games do not really do it for me and live or die on the narrative (like a walking sim). Soma is still the high water mark but this was a pleasant enough 4 hours.

I probably died like 20 times, but only because of dodgy controls or physics, it DOES NOT play well outside of the walking sim side of things and the few platforming bits really brought this down for me.

Played on PC using GamePass and a controller.