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When we sat down for a preview of Still Wakes the Deep at Gamescom, it wasn’t under the circumstances you might expect.
With horror titles like this, you ideally want to experience them in the right conditions. You know, a quiet, dimly lit room with no distractions or reminders of the outside world. That way you can really get lost in the nightmare that the developers have meticulously crafted for you.
That’s not the situation we found ourselves in here though. Instead, we were in the middle of a bustling, sweaty convention centre in Germany, surrounded by bright florescent lights, as well as the chatter of industry professionals networking away, in addition to folk ordering themselves more bratwurst & pretzels.
So it wasn’t a very spooky atmosphere (which obviously couldn’t be helped) and we doubt that even P.T. would have been very effective under those conditions. Yet Still Wakes the Deep managed to get under our skin nonetheless, thanks to its eerie setting, disturbing audio mix and pervasive sense of dread.
Annihilation meets The Poseidon Adventure
Up until now, The Chinese Room’s latest has been shrouded in alluring mystery, with us only having an enigmatic store page description — and an even less enlightening reveal trailer — to go on. Sure, we’ve been able to piece together that it’s a narrative-driven affair (which is a given for the Dear Esther studio), that it’s got a nautical theme, and that there’s some kind of creature-feature element at play, but other than that we’ve been kept totally in the dark.
While our sneak peek hardly constituted as a tell-all expose, it did help to clear some of these things up, with never-before-seen alpha footage and a developer Q&A session.
Before we got to that, however, we were first treated to a quick presentation introducing the game. The plot synopsis here mostly recapped information that’s already out in the public realm: explaining how you play as an offshore worker — based on an oil rig just off the coast of Scotland — who is running away from problems at home. Namely, that his neglected wife is filing for divorce.
When some manner of natural disaster strikes (we weren’t told precisely what form this will take), you’re forced to put aside these domestic concerns and enter survival mode, fending for yourself as the refinery collapses into the sea. Fiery explosions, tempestuous storms, and the structural integrity of your surroundings aren’t the biggest problems you’ll face though, as it also turns out that something terrible has emerged from the watery depths. A hostile and unknown threat that’s out for blood.
Putting it more succinctly, The Chinese Room have a very compelling elevator pitch for Still Wakes the Deep. In their own words, it’s essentially “Annihilation meets The Poseidon Adventure.” On one hand you’ve got the maritime disaster angle, while on the other you’ve got a sci-fi horror story that’s unfolding at the same time. Elaborating upon this idea further, Senior Game Designer for the project, Jade Jacson, said: “We’re trying to exploit a number of different phobias that people might have. Things like heights, drowning, isolation, narrow spaces, the unknown … and of course death”.
Hey, don’t threaten us with a good time.
A Unique Perspective
Next came that alpha footage, which enabled us to see these enticing concepts in action (albeit very briefly).
First of all, we were shown a snippet of the game from before shit hits the fan, as our middle-aged protagonist “Caz” wandered around the oil rig and interacted with his various co-workers. It’s nice to know that there will be actual NPCs in Still Wakes the Deep, instead of just the usual walking-sim trope where everybody is either a disembodied voice over the radio or a distant memory recorded onto an audio log. Indeed, Caz got quite talkative with some of them, and we get the feeling that they’re going to be fully fleshed-out characters. One of the things that really struck us about each member of the crew — whether it was the friendly engineer making ideal gossip, or the cook who was maybe a little too prying into your marital troubles — was their dialect.
As a British gamer, I’m used to hearing American voices coming from most of the characters that I control and, if they are ever from the UK, then they’ll tend to speak with received pronunciation (like geographically-indistinct news readers). On the rare occasion that someone does have a Northern twang, it’ll be because the developers want to illustrate their socio-economic background.
Fantasy RPGs in particular have a habit of employing the Yorkshire accent (like the one used by yours truly) as a kind of shorthand for somebody being of lower status. We’re not the protagonists; we’re beggars, bandits, thieves and nomads.
But in Still Wakes the Deep every single character authentically sounds like they’re from a part of the UK that isn’t London. I think a lot of them were Scottish (others could feasibly have been from the North of England) but their dialect and turns-of-phrase were immediately recognisable to me anyway.
Hearing things like “Shite”, “Ta”, “Slagged off”, “Aye” and disagreements about Barnsley football club coming from the mouths of people on screen was quite a surreal experience, because that’s all so ordinary to me and yet I’m never exposed to it in these horror games. It was relatable and certainly made the rest of the alpha footage hit a lot closer to home.
Speaking of which …
Nightmarish Creatures & Beautiful Horror
We then cut to a bit later on in the game, as Caz traversed the crumbling facility post whatever disaster has occurred.
Battered by the elements, he had to crawl along steel girders, jump across gaps and clamber over various obstructions in order to get to (relative) safety. It was an exhilarating sequence that seemed to suggest that there’ll be a fair bit of quasi-platforming in Still Wakes the Deep. Not to mention, it also looked incredible from a visual perspective, boasting convincing weather effects and photorealistic details in the environments.
Of course, it’s when Caz finally got inside that things started to kick up a notch. Skulking through flooded sections of the oil rig, he was clearly trying his best not to make a noise, lest he alert the mysterious creature to his presence.
It was a proper stealth section and, unlike with some of The Chinese Room’s previous offerings, there’s apparently real consequences if you’re caught here. On that note, Jacson confirmed that the team have tried to emphasise interactivity a little more this time around, and that they wanted the gameplay to feel “dangerous”.
When we pressed for more detail on this, she confirmed that there is in fact a fail-state and that you can die should the monster finds you. This isn’t going to be one of those walking simulator horror games then — where there’s no jeopardy to speak of — and you will have to try and outwit your pursuer. Jacson added that you will be able to distract it somehow but didn’t let anything else slip beyond that.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a good look at the elusive beast itself, as it was deliberately hidden from view throughout the alpha footage. What we can tell you though, is that the sound it makes is bloody harrowing.
An uncanny mix of human screams and inhuman shrieking, you can definitely tell where that Annihilation influence has come into play, as the bloodcurdling noise immediately brought to mind that mutant bear from Alex Garland’s 2018 movie. If the abomination producing that unholy racket is even half as frightening as it sounds, then it’s going to be a terrifying enemy to deal with.
In the ensuing Q&A, we asked if Annihilation inspired anything else with Still Wakes the Deep or if it was just the starting-point for the game’s creature. Jascon was again quite tight-lipped on this subject, yet did mention that the team were also looking to replicate the film’s idea of “beautiful horror,” whereby grizzly imagery is rendered oddly beguiling (like with those flower people).
She wouldn’t say much more on that topic, but suffice it to say we were very, very intrigued. Which pretty much sums up how we feel about the entire project now that we’ve finally been given a taste of it.
If it managed to unnerve us amidst the hustle and bustle of Gamescom, then we can’t wait to see how well it’s gonna play once we’re alone at the dead of night, desperately trying not to get caught by that shrieking monstrosity.
Published by Secret Mode, Still Wakes the Deep will be released in 2024 on Xbox Series X|S, PC and PS5. It will also be available at launch on Game Pass.
