Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
Waves the size of skyscrapers crash beneath me as I crawl over a broken metal beam suspended from the bottom of a collapsing oil rig in the middle of the North Sea. I crawl quickly but carefully, my knees sliding on the wet metal and my eyes locked on the platform in front of me. Don’t look down.
I look down. The cold sea boils inches from my rays, the white spray rising upward, threatening to drag me miles below the suffocating darkness and pressure. tight
In Still Awakening the Deep, horror comes in many forms. The violent creatures walk on thin, very long limbs that detach from their bodies like dwarves. Human-sized pustules and bloody ribbons grow throughout the corridors, giving off a sickly cosmic glow. The ocean is a relentless menace, crying under every step. And then there’s the Beira D oil rig itself, a huge and labyrinthine industrial platform supported by delicate tension legs in the middle of an angry sea, groaning and bending as it crumbles from within. Each of these elements is fatal; each manifesting a unique brand of terror.
Still Awakening the Deep is a first-person horror game from the studio behind The Chinese Room Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Dear Esther and All went to Rapture. The game is set in the winter of 1975 and is set in Beira D, a giant metal labyrinth that offers mystery, growing familiarity, and death at every turn. The setting is filled with a rich cast of characters from the British Isles, mostly Scots. Players take on the role of Jazz, an electrician on a rig whose best friend is Chef Roy.
Still Awakening the Deep It looks like a hit from the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, minus the modern AAA bloat. It is restricted like the original Dead Space, with the main plot serving the narrative and vice versa. The mechanics are constantly evolving without being repetitive or aggravating. His monsters are lethal but not overplayed. In Still Awakening the Deepthe horror is relentless, but its source is ever-changing—wild beasts, crumbling rigs, a raging North Sea—and this variety imbues the play with a roaring tension until the breathtaking final scene.
The game is fully voiced and its crew members are incredibly charming. A stream of good-natured ribbing belies every interaction, and the dialogue is serious and legitimately funny, even in life-and-death situations. This deft sense of character development makes the carnage all the more disturbing once the monsters board Beira D.
After an oil rig mines a mysterious substance deep in the North Sea, a giant eldritch organism takes over the structure, crushing its metal corridors and possessing the bodies of some of its crew members. Jazz is on a mission to survive the creatures and escape the facility – and help save Roy, whose body is rapidly failing because he can’t get his insulin.
In-game Still Awakening the Deep is a classic first-person horror film crafted with elegance and expertise. The action consists of leaping over broken platforms, balancing on thin ledges, running down corridors, climbing ladders, swimming through claustrophobic holes and hiding from monsters in vents and closets. Beira D has no weapons and Jazz has just a screwdriver to help him pick open locks and open metal panels, focusing more on pure survival than combat. Interactive materials are highlighted in yellow, so it’s never a question of what to do or where to go, but rather how to get there without falling victim to monsters, the sea, or the rig.
Every input feels perfectly precise and responsive. For example, to climb a ladder, you need to hold RT and press the analog stick in the right direction – but if Jazz slips, players must also suddenly hold LT so he can grab it in a quick action. In those moments of sudden panic, squeezing both triggers feels natural. It’s satisfying to hug the gamepad tightly, as Jazz grabs the ladder, player and character in perfect sync after a sudden scare. Still Awakening the Deep is a prime example of intuitive game design.
It’s also just a great game. I stopped short many times while playing Still Awakening the Deep just to admire the precise lines, intricate lighting and photorealism of special scenes, but every shot is dense with thoughtful and well-crafted detail. The otherworldly structures littering the rig cause Jazz’s vision to swell like a melting film reel, and multi-colored circles overtake the screen every time he gets too close to a pustule – it’s just as distracting and hauntingly beautiful as the rest of the game.
Still Awakening the Deep is a modern horror classic. It’s filled with heart-pounding horror and loud dialogue, all set in a setting rarely explored in interactive media. Between running, swimming, jogging and climbing at Beira D, Still Awakening the Deep manages to tell a heartwarming and powerful story about relationships and sacrifice. Jazz and Roy have a special friendship, but they also have family on the coast, and getting back to those people – alive, ideally – is a constant driving force.
Still Awakening the Deep currently available PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it’s included in Game Pass. It was developed by The Chinese Room and published by Secret Mode.
