Still Wakes the Deep. Stranded horror

Still Wakes the Deep is a horror game developed by ‘The Chinese Room‘ and published by ‘Secret Mode‘. Still Wakes the Deep is said to be coming out in in the first quarter of 2024 on the Xbox Series X, PS5 and pc. X35 Earthwalker knows what makes an excellent horror game and what mistakes to avoid. Still Wakes the Deep trying to be a unique horror experience. Let’s take a look.

Still Wakes the Deep is set in the past. 1975, Christmas time. Players control an off shore Glaswegian worker stationed on an oil rig in the North Sea waters. Sounds like a dangerous but happy times. It’s a typical day on the Beira D oil platform but then disaster strikes. wouldn’t be a horror game if everything was all honky dorey.

Now you out here fighting for your life. More like running and hiding for your life. All communications are cut off and all the exits are not available. Sucka you trapped. You will need to survive and keep your crew alive through a mean storm, dark, cold sea water and claustrophobic surroundings. It gets worse. The character players control will have to face some phobias like high heights (climbing towers), squeezing through tight spaces, paths that are submerged and off course leaps over high drops. None of that sounds scary to us. Still Wakes the Deep you better make this stuff scary.

The real problem in Still Wakes the Deep though is that the horror is now on board. There’s a persistent threat that’s said to be so powerful that “there’s no hope of fighting back.” So you know what that means. No fighting for you. All hiding, ducking, running, climbing and avoiding this threat. You got to survive all this stuff while helping the crew. One crew member will need you to restore power, something could be up with your boss while another member might be trapped somewhere.

We checked out some Still Wakes the Deep gameplay and it’s what we expected. The location does look dark and segregated. some parts look like a real health and safety hazard. Hopefully we get more roaring waters and loud thunder for atmosphere. You can clearly see that something wrong is going on here. Your character feels like as regular person. Nothing special, just trying to survive. A game like this can easily be good and give great scares but the horror elements need to be right. We truly hope the developers are aware of these. Concerning the horror open board, it’s clear the way to beat it, is to take it on… to face it… 

Overall Still Wakes the Deep is looking like an excellent game so far but that can easily change. Horror games are getting harder and harder to get right. Atmosphere so far looks good. The horror on board will make or break this game. It will decide if this game scary or not. How annoying will the crew be? That matters too. The developers ‘The Chinese Room’ have done a great job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to hear what Still Wakes the Deep scares. Now Still Wakes the Deep may have a persistent horror but it would gotten lost trying to chase… the ‘Earth Walk!’