Game Review: Still Wakes the Deep (2024)

Still Wakes the Deep‘s bleak aesthetics are what drew me to the game – and it didn’t disappoint! It was fun (but tricky at times) to play and ended with a difficult decision, a sense of fulfilment, and plenty of tears.

Mostly mine.

This one’s a psychological horror game set on a Scottish rig that’s falling apart because, when their drill struck something unexpected, the boss man (as usual) ordered them to drill through it, ultimately unleashing something otherworldly. It’s very much The Rig meets The Thing and definitely one for lovers of body horror.

Oh, and adults.

Still Wakes the Deep is so, so Scottish. And, if you know the Scots, you know that means colourful language. LOTS of colourful language. The voice actors were just brillient. The game nailed the Scottish accents and vernacular perfectly, making conversations feel natural, and adding a sense of reality that does a great job of drawing you into the story.

Is it a perfect game? Erm…

I won’t pretend that there aren’t a few plot holes where the story itself is concerned. You can piece together most of Caz, the main character’s, backstory, but it’s never clearly spelled out. More frustratingly, you never really learn what the… thing changing the crew actually is. (I guess that was deliberate, though, since Siren’s Rest, the Still Wakes the Deep DLC, is available for a tenner.)

Even with a few questions left unanswered, I enjoyed Still Wakes the Deep quite a lot. Enough that I’ll almost certainly buy the DLC. The controls are intuitive, the commands are natural, the graphics are clean, the dialogue cracked me up, and both the length and difficulty were just right.

This one comes highly recommended – as long as you aren’t looking for a happy ending! Still Wakes the Deep is definitely on the heavier side in that regard.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)