Being stuck and surviving alone in the middle of the sea is a nightmare. We’ve already seen games like this – Cold Fear, Cryptosis: Sleep of the Mind and Under the Waves, which I recently talked about, come to mind. And here is a new variation on this theme – Still Wakes the Deep from veterans from The Chinese Room, known for the walking simulator Dear Esther (the game actually created this genre), and the horror Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs . It’s no surprise that this time they’ve come up with a mixture of walking simulator and horror, which in some places is reminiscent of films such as "Something" And "Fallen Harbinger".
They did not return from the sea..
The first thing that catches your eye is Still Wakes the Deep, is a study of minor characters, members of the Beira D drilling platform, which in 1975 entered the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. They all seem to be real, truly Scottish guys (in England they are arrogantly called hillbillies), who, in conversations with the main character, an electrician named Kaz, vividly discuss their affairs, swear, joke, talk about football and make jokes in the spirit of “Roy can only pray. But he’s no stranger to it – he’s a Barnsley fan.”.
Therefore, when an inexplicable disaster occurs on the platform and something strange and terrible appears, killing crew members or turning them into terrible monsters, the emotions are many times stronger. Just 10 minutes ago you were chatting with a man, and now he, turned into an incomprehensible clot of meat on long sticky legs, runs after you and calls you by name in a creepy voice.
Yes, all these monsters have familiar faces and names, and everyone seems to retain a piece of their mind, turning to Kaz and talking about how he is tired of working for such pennies – but that makes it even more creepy..
Some, however, survived. And when something happens to them in the story, you sincerely want to cry. I even found myself talking out loud and almost shouting: “Yes, give him a slap in the face, maybe he’ll come to his senses.”!» In general, the game evokes emotions, which is greatly facilitated by the gorgeous voice acting. From a studio like The Chinese Room don’t expect anything else.
But what you’re really waiting for is explanations or hints that will help you understand what’s going on here? At first I was somewhat disappointed – I thought that there would be an unusual thriller about a battle with the elements (this conclusion can be drawn from the description on Steam), but in the end I got another mysticism and hints of either aliens or mutants, from whom I again have to hide in lockers. Then that same curiosity took over, but it remained unsatisfied. The game doesn’t give not only a clear answer, but any answer at all. There are very few even studios familiar to games and, in principle, to the genre of notes.
Instead, we are offered to occasionally immerse ourselves in the hero’s memories, where he almost constantly quarrels with his wife. Already in the first minutes it turns out that Kaz got a job on the platform to avoid punishment for a fight. And his wife dissuaded him from this, citing, among other things, the fact that they have children. And for a while it seems that the disaster that happened is some kind of metaphor for Kaz’s punishment. And from this point of view, it doesn’t matter where it comes from or what explains it.
At the end, the idea is conveyed that this is also a symbol of the opportunity to finally do something for the family. And yet the ending rather disappoints – the desire to make me cry with truisms and dialogues about love seemed too intrusive, drawn-out and unconvincing.
Jump, run and fix
The gameplay itself evokes the same conflicting feelings. On the one hand, it is extremely linear and rehearsal. Basically we run back and forth across the platform between the same compartments, crawl up and down stairs, fix something, change fuses in electrical panels, turn on relays, press buttons, pull levers, turn valves to remove gas jets, look for fire extinguishers, put out fires in the right places, and so on.
At the same time, there are absolutely no difficult riddles, but there are a lot of QTEs. The only hint of a puzzle is quickly solved by selecting and trying all possible options. In the same way, according to one scheme, we hide from monsters. Lockers and shelters are conveniently placed everywhere, and objects that can be thrown to temporarily distract the creature are carefully placed next to them.
On the other hand, these hide and seek and chases can cause fear, disgust, tension – in general, emotions.
I also liked the extreme acrobatic exercises, when we are forced to jump on parts of the platform that are falling apart under our feet, walk under boards laid out over the abyss, fall and at the last moment grab onto something. Almost every time we are at a high altitude.
The monotony is partly compensated by the change of scenery – 10 minutes ago we were hiding under pipes in the stuffy corridors of the engineering compartment, and now we are swimming near the pontoons. After some time we were staggering at high altitude, trying to get to the helipad. Well, in general, the game does a good job of conveying the atmosphere of tension and horror from the fact that you are alone trying to survive on a huge platform falling apart in the middle of the sea.
Still Wakes the Deep leaves conflicting feelings. It’s clear that this is a quality horror adventure with stunning audiovisual performances and a carefully crafted atmosphere. And at the same time, disappointment remains, because it is equally obvious that the authors (and above all the screenwriters) never realized the full potential of the concept they came up with.
Pros: perfectly conveyed atmosphere of tension and horror; well-written characters to whom it is impossible to remain indifferent; gorgeous audiovisual performance, and especially voice acting; excellent Russian translation.
Cons: the plot as https://jestbahiscasino.co.uk/ a whole and the explanation of what is happening could be written better; linearity and monotony of gameplay.
Still Wakes the Deep
Best comments
Well, I don’t know, I couldn’t find an atmosphere of tension and horror. And this was not helped by the terribly linear short levels for skirmishes with monsters, where you really feel the artificiality. You’re walking around the room, and suddenly everything around you is strewn with objects and dotted with secluded places half as tall? So there will be a monster here. Secluded places also form such a clear passage; no other ways to get around the enemy are provided. The monsters are very predictable, there is no problem sneaking past them.
And there are no clashes as such. The monster can grab you, and you will need to start from the control point, which is right there nearby. No tension, struggle or even even a health bar.
All the other mechanics in the game are unclear why they exist, except for climbing. But then it’s not clear why the hero is an electrician and not an industrial climber. His electrician skills are required a couple of times during the game to replace a dead fuse. For some reason, they introduced the mechanics of heating from a heater, which in the plot will be needed a couple of times simply because.
What you can’t take away from the game is great dialogue, voice acting and graphics. There’s nothing to complain about here, everything looks very juicy, sounds very cool, and also colorful.
In general, I agree with the review. But, in my opinion, this is more of a pass-through. Play for a couple of evenings using the gamepass – why not?. Same as “easy kinchik” take a look.
You can say that. I’m personally terrified. All saves went to hell.
My complaints are not so much about the crooked game design, but about the impotent script. We all know that the authors either don’t know how or simply don’t want to make GAMES – they are much more interested in telling stories through the prism of an interactive walking simulator.
But! Previously – in the same Machine for Pigs – the script, although itself weak in terms of events, still offered the player both crazy concepts and the most magnificent pearls of the main character in his schizophasia, who, although he was talking nonsense, was extremely funny and memorable nonsense.
There is nothing like that in Still Wakes the Deep – we don’t learn any information about the paranormal threat, but none of the characters – of which there are not many here anyway – are not at all interested in the word. Well, there’s Diabetic, Grandma, and Black – so what? It should be noted that the actors perform excellently! In the final dialogue between GG and Cherny, I even felt something, but this is due precisely to the actors and their voice work, and not to the screenwriters. After all, we don’t really know anything about anyone other than the main character, and there’s nothing to get attached to them for.
Passed by yesterday. The game looks fantastic, but practically does not convey the zeitgeist, the vibes of those years can only be caught at first, nothing more. The plot seems to be intriguing, but does not respect the player at all and does not provide a single answer to a great many questions, and hints at Cameron’s introspective background essentially remain so. As a result, the game has undeniable advantages: good narrative pacing, well-written characters and cool, exciting dialogues. One could also call the atmosphere a virtue, but as mentioned above, the game practically does not work with the spirit of the times, which periodically reduces this very atmosphere to default runs along the same corridors, although I would call the level design quite good, there are even semi-open areas intended for hiding from former work colleagues. By the way, this aspect also seems to me a little underdeveloped, because even Trots, whom Kaz seems to consider his good friend, is not at all revealed in this regard, but what potential there was, the monster-hunting here is performed in a very unusual way, even if something like this has already happened in the same cinema.
Overall, it’s worth playing. But previous projects of The Chinese Room, especially the stubbornly ignored Everybody Gone to the Rapture, dealt with the script and the semantic load on the player much more convincingly. But in the new product, strange as it may seem to talk about British opuses, there is more gameplay, which is not that deep, but addictive enough so that the player does not dislocate his jaw from yawning. Well, the game looks very cool both technically and artistically. Not Hellblade 2, but not much worse.)
The dead SSD is an element of the horror part of the game?
I became seriously interested in the game after I realized that these same people were remaking VtMB2. But I understand from the reviews that opinions are divided (although 89% on Steam), and many people criticize the game. Hmmmm.
So the game is about narrative. This is not a survival horror game or an outlast clone, but just a walking sim in which similar segments are inserted more to create variety.
For me, a huge problem with the game was that while focusing on the narrative, the game ultimately doesn’t give you anything in this very narrative, and the ending cannot be called anything other than terribly disappointing and unsatisfying
Agree. I thought about writing about this and forgot. The plot here exists only so that you have some events. There is practically no meaning, and none of the topics are ultimately developed. It’s a total disgrace.
Yes, the whole game rests only on voice actors and good graphics.
Considering that some Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1T costs 12,500 rubles, it’s quite a horror
And that’s wonderful. Why on earth should a stupid electrician learn the great secrets of the appearance of monsters??
Yes, it sounds great, but in reality it’s not at all. This is not the case when monsters are surrounded by mystery, and their true nature is hidden behind innuendoes that encourage players to forever guess and speculate about everything that happens. No, here it’s just a vague threat that only evokes the eternal desire to say: “And that’s all?».
The characters of the same “Alien” are also just truckers, unable to find out the true nature of the xenomorph, but the film still gives the audience enough half-hints and interesting images to get at least some picture of what is happening.
In similar conditions, Still Wakes the Deep gives players a kick with butter)
Almost passed it. SSD died. I liked the game. The characters are well written. Yes, for a walking simulator it’s quite scary to play, but then you seem to get used to it.
How long does it take to complete the game??
Lockers and shelters are conveniently placed everywhere, and objects that can be thrown to temporarily distract the creature are carefully placed next to them.
After that, I instantly lost interest in the game.
Yes, the ending is so empty that it doesn’t evoke any emotions at all. You could have made a bad ending, you could have made a good one, but this one is just no good.
I have a question with spoilers. To be honest, I didn’t understand a couple of things; I couldn’t find anything on the Internet. Help!
The plot is revealed through several visual flashbacks when the hero is dying, and through a couple of dialogues in his head with his wife (without visual accompaniment). Throughout the game, the daughters were presented to us as if they were alive, but from these two dialogues we can conclude that they got lost because of the main character. But then this topic is not discussed anywhere else at all. I still don’t understand if they were lost or not? Or it could be like the future that will happen if GG doesn’t commit suicide? Closer to the end you can find two or three notes from the two remaining survivors. In one they discuss radios, in another they say that GG has already died. What was that for??
I took a good one with a radiator. Aourus gigabyte gen 4 all things 800. Terabyte recording. I served for two years, of course, but that’s not enough..