Still Wakes the Deep Review

Another depressive episode neutralized – finished Still Wakes the Deep.

Overall Impression

I’m not a fan of Lovecraftian stories. I don’t like first-person games. And I genuinely hate games that build their gameplay around parkour. Especially first-person parkour. Especially in Lovecraftian settings. Also, I’m not scared of water, heights, or tight spaces. So what the hell drew me to this game?

Honestly, I don’t know. If I’d gone solely by my conscious preferences, I’d never have played it. But I threw it on my list after watching the trailer — pure gut feeling. Something told me this was a work worth experiencing. Spoiler: I wasn’t wrong.

Plot, Story, Characters

The game takes place in 1975, on an oil rig in the Scottish North Sea. Tough Scottish blokes (and one even tougher Scottish woman) are doing tough drilling of the ocean floor, swearing toughly — and then run into some ancient evil slumbering in the depths. That evil takes over the rig, destroying it and turning anyone too weak in spirit (or just unlucky) into unnatural aberrations.

We play as one of those tough blokes — an electrician nicknamed Caz, who somehow manages to hold on to his humanity and a shred of sanity all the way to the end.

Major respect to the character work: each one feels distinct, like they have their own story and personality. None of them are just NPCs — each has a shared history with Caz, be it good or bad. Everyone feels completely alive, and I remembered almost every character, even the ones Caz had known for years but I only had a few seconds to get a feel for — before a monster got them, or a wave swept them into the sea.

And for those who like this kind of thing, the game’s sprinkled with clever historical echoes — like a poster that reads “Make Great Britain Great Again,” a popular political slogan in early '70s pre-Thatcher Britain. All coincidences purely accidental, of course. 😉

Design, Visuals, Sound

Visually, the game hits exactly the right notes — the sea is harsh and leaden, the organic masses of Lovecraftian horrors from the deep are disgusting and repulsive, yet weirdly hypnotic, and the oil rig is all steel and grit. The equipment creaks, sparks, and groans — but it works. Everything feels authentic, looks great, and runs almost glitch-free. I did spot a couple of oddities — shadows falling at strange angles or some of the amorphous monster textures acting up — but overall, it just works.

There’s a surprising number of physics-driven objects, which is rare these days and adds nicely to the realism. I especially want to praise how well the visual and audio teams synced their work. Too often, even when both are done well, they don’t quite click together — breaking immersion and leaving you with the feeling you’re in a beautiful diorama with a beautiful soundtrack slapped on top.

Here, everything clicks. The sound elevates the visuals and delivers a full-body experience — hitting your head on a steel beam, swimming underwater as your breath runs out, the crushing darkness, the heavy thump of a creature approaching on metal walkways — it all feels real. That’s because the sound is perfectly dialed into the imagery.

Gameplay

Gameplay is mostly about parkour — 1970s-style parkour, mind you, not the cursed Mirror’s Edge kind that made me smash a controller ten minutes in. Thankfully, the collapsing oil rig offers plenty of chances for dangerous jumps and risky narrow-beam crossings.

Calling it parkour might actually be generous — it’s more like a series of quick-time events, and pretty straightforward ones, to be honest. The rest of the time, you’re either walking around in stunned horror, or running and hiding from your former colleagues, now turned into the representations of chaos on Earth… at sea… in our reality.

Actually, the gameplay reminds me a lot of the brilliant SOMA, only a bit faster.

All in all, I didn’t find the game challenging at all — the gameplay never got in the way of me just living through the story. And keep in mind, I’m not a fan or an expert in either parkour or first-person games. Controls are simple, intuitive, and clearly built to help the player — if you make an effort to keep your character alive, the game is on your side.

They say the game has multiple endings. Honestly, I only recall one moment where I had a choice — and even then, I’m not sure if picking the other option wouldn’t have led me right back to the same outcome anyway.

Then again, neither Silent Hill nor Resident Evil offer direct choices either — they feel linear on a first playthrough, but are full of “small things” that quietly nudge you toward one ending or another. Chances are, this one works the same way.

Technical Execution

I’d give this a solid A-minus. Everything is tidy, beautiful, and almost seamless. One small detail that really made me happy: in first-person view, you can actually see your own legs, and the character opens doors with his hands — not always, but often enough. That’s something I miss in a lot of games.

Now, the world does include a fair bit of physics simulation, so not everything works perfectly — especially the more complex monster designs, with their tangled geometry and tentacle spaghetti. But those glitches are minor, don’t break immersion, and don’t give the player any unfair advantage.

Final Thoughts

The single most powerful hook for me was the atmosphere.

First off — all the characters speak in Scottish English. You know, English that’s technically still English, but you ain't understand no shite. I even turned off the subtitles to make things more fun. And if you really want to go hardcore, there’s an option for Gaelic voiceover — but I passed on that one.

Anyway, after 30 minutes of thick brogue and full-strength sailor cursing, I was completely immersed. I even caught myself thinking in a Scottish accent. Shame I couldn’t find a kilt — the neighbors across the street would’ve loved that.

Secondly — and this is rare — the game has a mature, grounded story.

Most horror protagonists are cops, ex-soldiers, private investigators, or people with some mysterious, tragic backstory. They’re always special in some dramatic way. But here, we’re just playing a regular dude. Simple past. Simple friends. Simple wife. He ended up on the oil rig the way real people end up anywhere — life just sorta happened. Then everything went to shite — plain, unremarkable, mediocre shite — and he tried to hide from it at sea.

That lack of capital-H Heroic grandeur, the absence of Evil Masterminds™ or prophetic destinies — that’s what makes the story feel so real. It’s a what-if tale about ordinary people dropped into supernatural hell, and it nails the tone completely.

I’m genuinely glad I trusted my gut and didn’t skip this little gem.