The Chinese Room’s most recent horror experience Still Wakes The Deep has quickly become a favourite for horror fans since its release last month.

A truly horryfying experience, Still Wake The Deep sees players take the role of Caz, a Glaswegian electrician working on the Beira D oil rig in the north sea. When a standard drilling operation uncovers something that should have been left well alone, Caz is forced to fight for his survival.

Combining claustrophobic environments and unknowable horrors allowed Still Wakes The Deep to become an almost instant horror classic.

Much like The Chinese Room’s other games Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Still Wakes The Deep features no combat, forcing players to approach the monsters with caution.

Still Wakes The Deep combines many ideas and tropes horror fans are used to, but the game effectively subverts them and pays homage to many of it’s inspirations in interesting ways.

The game falls under the umbrella of horror but fits better within horror sub-genres like lovecraftian and body horror.

What lies at the bottom of the sea?

Image credit: Secret Mode

If you’ve seen John Carpenter’s The Thing or read any Lovecraft, the horror of Still Wakes The Deep will be familiar, but the horror only truly begins an hour in.

A false sense of security is built within the games first hour. Caz wanders around the rig, interacting with his friends and the crew of the ship.

Caz isn’t your typical horror protagonist, he’s been forced into his job on the rig and has to deal with the reprocautions of his actions back home.

Without going into detail about Caz’s story, from the beginning the player knows he isn’t a clean cut morally sound man, and this only fuels the interest of his character.

The slow walk around the rig allows the player time to get familiar to their environment before it all goes to hell.

Hell really is the only way to describe what happens to the rig. Corridors are ripped apart and what were once people have become disgusting fleshy growths bursting through the walls.

Unlike The Chinese Room’s previous games, the threat of death is real and ever present during Caz’s hopeless journey.

If it’s not the monstrous crew trying to kill you, it’s the faulty rig that’s slowly sinking into the sea.

Caz navigates tight gaps and leaps across broken bridges all with the hope that he will eventually find a way off the rig.

Much of the gameplay is navigation based. The player guides Caz along a linear path but must time their jumps and complete quick time events to prevent Caz from falling.

An unfortunate trend Still Wakes The Deep falls into is the use of “yellow paint” as a guide for the player.

Popularised by the recent Resident Evil games, you’ll see yellow rails and paint cans littering the rig that act as a guide for players to follow.

This painful trend can be turned off in the options and turning it off helps the experience immensely.

Tentacles and terror

Image credit: Secret Mode

Still Wakes The Deep‘s monstrous horrors are familiar but stand on their own as terryfying beasts.

Without spoiling the designs of the monsters, they play off aspects of those they have infested making them incredibly interesting.

They are all very clearly inspired by The Thing, but the re-invention of the Body Snatcher idea is equally as effective as it was back then.

The monsters don’t play very different from each other but the locations they are found make each encounter nail bitingly exciting.

A chase through quickly deteriorating corridors stands out as one of the best encounters.

When it comes to explaining the horrors that infest the rig, Still Wakes The Deep plays its cards close to its chest.

The few answers that are given provide even more questions for the players.

Deciding to keep the mysteries a mystery adds alot to the atmosphere of the game.

Still Wakes The Deep clocks in at just over four hours depending on if you get stuck or not. The short run time means the experience gets to the point quickly without draggin in any areas.

Where a game like the equally amazing Alien: Isolation drags in its last few hours, the condensed experience of Still Wakes The Deep is refreshing.

Original horror waits in the sea

Image Credit: Secret Mode

There’s nothing scarier than the sea, a mostly unknown landscape that stretches on endlessly, who knows what lies under the surface.

Still Wakes The Deep plays on this fear perfectly by letting the sea be a monster of its own.

As the situation on the Beira D gets worse, the sea starts to seep in as the rig begins to sink.

The moment Caz has to find his way around the partially submerged rig, was the moment the game truly scared me.

At multiple points, Caz must push through areas entirely under water, relying on his faulty torch and collapsing lungs to get him to safety.

These moments are harrowing and put into perspective how dire the situation is.

Monsters may be scary, but what’s scarier than drowning?

The effectiveness of the horror hinges on if the player is either scared of the monsters or the sea.

Personally, the sea scared me far more than anything else.

No escape, no hope

Image credit: Secret Mode

As a horror fan, it’s been super exciting to see Still Wakes The Deep make waves across the horror community and sell may of The Chinese Room’s style of game.

Still Wakes The Deep creeps under your skin and stays there after the credits roll. It’s an upsetting story that doesn’t have a happy ending, how could it.

Caz is put through hell and when reaching the final minutes of the game, theirs beauty in the finality to his story.

The last five minutes of the game brought tears to my eyes, not many horror games have been able to do that.

The horror games landscape has been filled with remakes and sequels recently, and most original ideas aren’t able to reach the mark of the aformentioned sequels and remakes.

To have Still Wakes The Deep come in and make its presence known, was incredible to see.

If you haven’t given Still Wakes The Deep a chance yet, I can’t recommend it enough, especially if your in the mood for something scary in the lead up to Halloween.

Featured image credit: Secret Mode