Warning to the cowardly, the latest production of The Chinese Room emerges from the depths to offer its new interpretation of the horrifying walking simulator. Remember, it was in the spotlight during the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2023. After all, it is the studio behind renowned titles like Dear Esther or Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs which is in charge and there’s no denying their experience in scaring. The game is published by Sumo Group and the developer will try to reset our fear meter by taking us to sea on an oil platform. It’s time to confront ourselves with this adventure which draws both on the side of The Thing and the universe of Lovecraft and which, moreover, is available day one in GamePass.
Somewhere under the sea
An atmospheric and atmospheric game par excellence, Still Wakes the Deep takes us back to the 1970s in the open North Sea, off the coast of Scotland. We discover the daily life of Cameron McLeary alias Caz, a specialized worker on the Beira D oil platform. The latter is an electrician by trade and incidentally the good guy of the team. Very quickly, his routine is turned upside down… The crew of the Beira drills a little too deep, in search of ever more black gold, and awakens an unknown threat. As a result, things get out of hand, strange structures emerge and little by little the platform becomes a hostile environment. Part of the crew is decimated and transformed into shapeless creatures, so you will have to do everything you can to avoid suffering the same fate.
- Spacious and well-lit cabin at your disposal!
In parallel with this main plot, the game gives a glimpse of an underlying story, that of Caz. From the first minutes, we glimpse his intimacy upon receiving the letter from his wife Suze and his daughters, the missive leaving a mystery surrounding the origin of his presence on the oil platform against a backdrop of dispute. We would like to believe in a connection or a metaphor between the two plots of the story, but this is not the case. The whole thing remains superficial and the narration remains stingy in its content. With the depopulation of the platform and the need to keep a common thread, the studio chose to connect the survivors using service telephones scattered everywhere, this means constituting the main tool to tell us the whole story.
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- Will, is that you, darling?
More traditional means could have been implemented like words, newspapers, photos, or anything else to reinforce the context or the connection between the characters, but here it remains timid. Beyond the remarkable work on the accents of the protagonists, on learning that Scotland is full of oil and gas and that haggis is on the canteen menu, we are left a little unsatisfied. As for the emotional connection to the other characters on the team, it is reduced to nothing. The developer tries to show a stronger affinity with this or that member of the crew, but it works poorly. You are just the good guy appreciated by the team or the good guy ready to provide the slightest service, depending on your point of view. We’ll let you guess who will be the lucky one to go and repair the generator in the hold…
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- Yes let’s do that, you stay here while I go down to the basement with the monsters!
Somewhere under the sea
Reducing the gameplay to its simplest device, the term walking simulator is not overused here. The actions available to the player are limited to running, jumping, hanging on or turning on or off their flashlight. So don’t plan to face the creatures armed with a crowbar or a shovel, you will instead hide or run away as fast as possible. The route to take is even clearly indicated to you by a subtle yellow color: “oh, yellow on a piece of plywood, that’s where I have to jump! Hold a yellow beam on the ceiling and what if I cling to it? A locker, maybe I can hide there?” And no, as of this writing, this color is not deactivating. If we gain in readability with this breadcrumb, we clearly lose in immersion.
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- Extra-terrestrial or Lovecraftian threat, have you already put forward the dry rot hypothesis?
In order to break the monotony, there are a few platform phases taking place mainly outdoors or hide-and-seek games facing creatures, but it remains lean and classic. At certain times, we think we see new mechanics arriving, such as, for example, the use of the flashlight or the presence of heaters. Will the lamp fail us? Are we going to have to “warm up” our character at times? The answer is no.
The real strength of the title lies in its general atmosphere. Significant work has been done on the oil rig which is, perhaps ultimately, the main character of this story. This evolves throughout the story and offers the opportunity to discover a very specific activity before disrupting these “familiar” places to offer them a different light. The feeling that we are in isolation, lost in the middle of the North Sea, is well transcribed, as is the lack of escape. The atmosphere is memorable, the colorimetry is spread out in a palette of grays for the exterior and dull colors for the interiors. It is as if an outdated filter had been applied to the whole of reality, an aesthetic which reinforces the confinement of the place and also allows a return to the past.
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- The bowels of the station: let’s take a walk in the dark….
The work on sound contributes greatly to the immersion, the sound effects are particularly effective. In addition to the howls of the creatures, the sound environment through metallic sounds, water, or the effects of resonance or reverberation commands respect. The game does not hesitate to highlight moments of calm and even complete silence, which is sometimes much more frightening than a deluge of effects. In short, this part is very successful.
But then, is it scary? Yes and no. We find some of the mechanics well known to horror fans, but some are abandoned on the downside. For example, jumpscares and questionable camera angles were barely used. Ditto for Caz’s death which is not a frightening or traumatic event, on the contrary, we are even treated to a small metaphorical cutscene when it occurs because of one of the creatures.
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- Perfect for a dip
The game is never better than in the confrontation with primary fears, it plunges us in turn into the guts of the oil platform or into rickety exterior settings and confronts us with emptiness, drowning, and a phobia of the dark or even claustrophobia. We are convinced that in virtual reality, the title would certainly take on another dimension! On the other hand, with regard to the creatures, it works less well, the fault of a more than perfectible AI and their design. Indeed, they are just a shapeless and rather ridiculous pile of flesh.
After about five hours to conclude this adventure, the major problem of Still Wakes the Deep lies in its ability to surprise us and therefore scare us. It leaves an impression of déjà vu, like one of those games or films that you have walked through or seen over and over again, whether in its mechanics or in the situations proposed. At best, it demonstrates a certain classicism and constitutes a good gateway to the survival horror genre.
Tested on Xbox Series
