Still Wakes the Deep is a game I enjoyed more for the setting, cast, and plot than the gameplay. It feels a lot like The Chinese Room emulating Frictional Games’ more streamlined titles – think SOMA or Amnesia: Rebirth – though the twists, revelations, and tragic moments don’t hit quite as hard. On the upside, that means Still Wakes the Deep has a well-paced story and more varied gameplay sequences that – even if they feel derivative and perfunctory – are a big improvement on the lethargic pacing and limited interactivity of their prior games.

Of course, the “walking sim” genre has always placed the characters and narrative themes first and foremost, and there’s no denying Still Wakes the Deep is more compelling than many of its peers. A protagonist trapped aboard a rickety oil rig in the North Sea during the Christmas of 1975, dealing with both an otherworldly invasion and their own past; a cast of foul-mouthed but immediately likeable Scots slowly falling around him; a lovingly recreated oil rig, packed with fine details, that evolves over the course of the night. The setting and premise provide solid foundations and it does a good job straddling the line between relatable drama and cosmic horror.



It’s also well-told and well-paced, even if direct encounters with other survivors are rare – normal ones at any rate – and most of the time you’re listening to “Caz” take phone calls or mouth off about his predicament. The actual story arc, themes, and ending won’t come as much of a surprise if you’ve played other games from The Chinese Room, but the coarse Scottish accents and profanity-strewn dialogue ensure the drama and horror is interspersed with some light-hearted moments and believable raw emotions. It feels wonderfully authentic (with an option for “English” subtitles that translate some of the slang) and it actually was left annoyed that so many developers love the accent but not the quirks of the language itself.

The setting and premise provide solid foundations and it does a good job straddling the line between relatable drama and cosmic horror.

Now, that said, the plot still beholden to video game logic. Caz – an electrician who got the job through contacts, not qualifications – ends up running loops around the sinking rig, dealing with contrivance after contrivance, to the point the final hour had me rolling my eyes several times (even if there is some narrative context for the shoddy state of the rig). There are important secondary characters who operate in the background and provide advice, but it’s primarily Caz who lurches from disaster to disaster – always the wrong man in the right place. It’s a perfect excuse to get a lot of mileage out of a relatively small environment, it gives the player time to discover more of Caz’ backstory and values, while the environment evolves as you return to previous locations only to find them overrun with gruesome, tentacled organic growth and twisted crew members.



If you were worried Still Wakes the Deep’s horror themes mean it might play like the Amnesia games, don’t be. For better and worse, the game functions as a succession of story beats connected by highly scripted gameplay sequences that clearly alternate between walk-and-talk sections; follow-the-yellow-markings platforming; basic puzzles with environmental clues; hide-and-sneak sections; run-like-hell sections; and quite a few QTE scares that almost felt retro in 2024 (“quick time events” if you had forgotten). There were, at most, three sections that felt sandbox-ish with multiple ways to sneak or run past a monster – but even those were incredibly short and heavily checkpointed. Don’t expect Amnesia-style key hunts in labyrinthine environments, with roaming monsters and emergent horror.

If you were worried Still Wakes the Deep’s horror themes mean it might play like the Amnesia games, don’t be.

On the upside, the overly familiar and streamlined gameplay works to immerse you in the environment without ever presenting roadblocks to progress – something that can derail narrative pacing. On the downside, if you go into Still Wakes the Deep looking for something fresh or exciting in the genre, it can feel downright unambitious and it’s all too easy for your brain to switch off while you go through familiar motions.



Puzzles just require the correct sequence of inputs and the game won’t even let you get it wrong; QTE sequences give you plenty of time and there’s always a checkpoint nearby; climbing grips, hiding spots, and vent covers are all conveniently plastered in yellow paint; gruesome enemies have predictable patrols and are easily distracted; while chase sequences have only one correct path forward with plenty of visual signposting. Hell, the only gameplay elements that stood out were the laborious swimming sections for the wrong reasons – but that may have just been control issues in the review build.

Now, despite my gameplay criticisms, I still enjoyed my six-ish hour playthrough. So long as you’re invested in the cast and story – which is easy to do given the quality of the writing and voice acting – it does more than enough to keep you hooked, even if the gameplay is not that engaging. Caz is a protagonist with a backstory you’ll want to uncover, his fellow crew are diverse and compelling as both allies and mutated antagonists, and the source and nature of the invasion forms a nice central mystery.



Moving beyond my Amnesia comparisons, Still Wakes the Deep had me thinking back to how revelatory Firewatch once felt, while simultaneously wishing the gameplay was more novel and thematically entwined in the narrative, like what we got in What Remains of Edith Finch. If you’re a fan of the genre, after a strong narrative, quality voice work, and beautiful environments, it’s easy enough to recommend. If, on the other hand, you wanted a stronger gameplay focus with sandbox-style environments, resource management, and emergent horror, take a look at Frictional Game’s incredible Amnesia: The Bunker instead.

*PC Review code provided by Secret Code