Still Wakes the Deep XSX Review 9/10 "Possibly the most naturalistic dialogue in a video game" 🛢️🗼 @SWTD_Game @ChineseRoom #IndieGame #GameDev

The Chinese Room were the company that introduced me to the walking simulator genre with their minimalistic and glorious 2012 title Dear Esther. This was followed by a firm favourite of our household in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. And so, learning that The Chinese Room were making a game set on a Scottish oil rig in the mid-’70s was enough to make my trousers fly off and fold themselves neatly in a drawer, before definitively slamming it shut.

The player character is Caz, a man who we learn has taken a temporary job on this lonely oil rig in a bid to escape the police, who are after him for a vicious assault on a man back on the mainland. through flashbacks, we learn that he left behind a wife and two daughters, a wife who is angry at him for always running away from his problems – especially when  he himself appears to be the cause of them. Assuring her that he’ll be back before Christmas, he sets off towards the rig with his friend Roy, who will be accompanying him as the cook there.

The game begins with Caz – employed as the ‘leccy’ expert -  making his way to breakfast, but getting interrupted by Rennick, the rig boss, who tells him that the police have located him and he is to fly back to the mainland on the company helicopter immediately. It is at this point that the drill hits something underwater and things...well...things escalate.

This is one of those games where I dearly long to get extremely in-depth into the story and my take on it, but it would be at the cost of ruining how it unfolds - and so I’ll try and keep well away from major spoilers, although I will say that I had a great conversation with my better half upon completion, as we discussed the game afterwards which is always a very good sign, especially in this specific genre.

I’ll open with a bold claim, that Still Wakes the Deep contains very possibly the most believable and naturalistic script and delivery I have ever encountered, and it’s summed up perfectly at the very start of the game as you make your way across the rig from the cafeteria through to the administration office at the very top.

The casual, cuss-filled chats you have with your co-workers are uncannily believable, even in the briefer moments, and this is very much something that continues straight through to the game right up until the end. This isn’t a crew of brave heroes or archetypes, this is a working oil rig filled with men and women who are skilled labourers, working class folks caught up in an extremely volatile situation beyond their understanding, but – and this is something that my movie podcast (The Men Who Talk - Kino Kingdom) colleague often mentions in horror films – they don’t all turn into screaming ninnies the moment things kick off, they are all competent at their jobs and keep things working to the best of their ability. This means that a lot of the connections between the characters you encounter hold weight and drama without just being a load of tropey shash. Good.

As someone who grew up on Billy Connolly, Rab C. Nesbitt, and reading the Broons and Oor Wullie (thanks, Nan), I was hips deep in the dialect, and totally and utterly in the grey, realistic, and practical world of these characters and their working situation. I will also say that there’s an option to make the spoken dialogue more palatable to those who may struggle with the slang, clarifying the dialogue in the subtitles, which is a nice touch.

Tied to this incredible dialogue – which is a true highlight of all in video gaming, as far as I’m concerned – is a soundtrack of extremely evocative music from Jason Graves, and some glorious audio work that captures this ageing, creaking and increasingly untrustworthy oil platform. As you make your way around in ever more desperate – and claustrophobic scenarios, the keening music, punishing rain, and..other sounds...make for a very intense experience, especially when using headphones.

The visuals too are crisp and smooth, and I never got bored of looking at every last inch of the oil rig, brought to life with vintage touches of garish carpets, vinyl LPs and classic British food and snacks dotted around – bloody lovely, nostalgic stuff! 

The gameplay is where I feel things may split for people. At a perfect six hours or so in length, the focus here is on moving forward, constant problem-solving with light environmental puzzles and obstacle manoeuvring being the order of the day. It’s nothing complex, and the direction of the story doesn’t lend itself to an exploratory open-world situation, as will become clear when you play.

Yes, this is a better game than Bioshock Infinite, because in a time-based, life or death struggle with mounting odds, you don’t piss about doing side quests, helping people pick flowers or find a dropped wallet. This is a tight narrative about an insane, overwhelming situation and one man’s part in it.

On that topic, a little touch that I really enjoyed was that, when the next obstacle is presented - maybe it’s firing up four back-up generators, or needing to complete actions in multiple places - it’s not all left up to you as Caz, the person explaining the situation will halve the work by dealing with some aspects of it, and that off-screen ‘sharing’ of the workload adds to that sense of unspoken camaraderie, that you are not just a gofer running around whilst everyone else chills out, smokes fags and emptily congratulates you over the radio – they are all doing their part, desperate to get off this infernal, increasingly dangerous oil rig.

SUMMARY

As you can can probably tell, I bloody loved Still Wakes the Deep, and The Chinese Room prove  once more that they can weave a solid, tightly-told tale that sparks conversations.

I would be extremely surprised if there weren’t multiple awards heading their way in this year, and I’d certainly like to buy all of the voice cast pints of McEwan’s.

This review is already a thousand words long, and I could very easily spend another thousand breaking down the story beats, exchanges between characters and the subtle drama beneath an explosive surface.

Anyway, play it.