Still Wakes The Deep deserves its three Baftas for superlative survival horror game thrills
The survival horror game genre is very much like the survival horror-movie genre. It is a niche genre which appeals to people who crave good scares and want to get their adrenaline pumping. Some of the most popular games, such as Resident Evil – a game so influential it spawned an 11-film franchise – have raked in millions of dollars.
In the summer of 2024, along came Still Wakes the Deep, developed by The Chinese Room, a British video game developer based in Brighton that is famous for exploration games including Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. A creepy thriller set on a Scottish oil rig, Still Wakes The Deep was nominated for eight Bafta games awards.
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Last month it scooped three of them (including two for best performance for Scots actors Alec Newman and Karen Dunbar), even though it was up against titles appealing to a far wider audience such as Astro Bot and Helldivers 2. The third Bafta was for new intellectual property which is awarded to the best game not part of an established series.
December 1975. Disaster strikes the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality.
The setting is probably the most realistic oil rig in any game I’ve seen. It a state of dank disrepair, the rig feels totally authentic in its 1970s period details. Just walking around is perilously treacherous and keeps players on edge.
Players adopt the persona of Glaswegian electrician Cameron “Caz” McCleary. It’s Christmas and he’s dodging the police and an angry wife after a bar fight. To top it off he’s just been fired by the rig boss for his sins.
Despite the unsafe nature of the rig and a storm threatening, the rapacious manager insists on drilling deeper which unleashes a nameless, timeless terror that infects the workers who soon start turning into hideous mutants. Caz is running desperately back and forth, fighting against the storm, fires, and the bloodthirsty mutant creatures.
Level design (the structuring of the game’s spaces and environments) is creative. The spaces inside are dark and claustrophobic. Those outside are chaotic, as the rig starts collapsing above a roiling North Sea. The use of a linear narrative is executed well, and Caz is desperately trying to save himself and his crew by either launching lifeboats or making it to the helicopter pad. But absolutely nothing is going to plan.
The graphics and aesthetics are beautifully crisp and the attention to detail even in the crew quarters and mess is really something, not to mention the particle effects (such as fire and electrical sparks). Looking over the edge at the North Sea or at the rain drumming against the window is pretty realistic.
The level design is intuitive for experienced and novice gamers alike and players can customise the experience with “hints” which you can turn off, for example, if you want a more challenging time. The hints are usually marked in yellow paint and show you where to go, where to hide and how to solve puzzles.
Obstacles include former crew who have transformed into terrifying creatures. The linear narrative and the atmosphere ramp up the tension as players try to make it stealthily past the monsters. The game requires “well-ordered” problem solving which makes the experience both nerve racking and “pleasantly frustrating”, as academic James Gee describes the process in his paper Learning by Design: Good Video Games as Learning Machines.
Digital games-based learning uses computer games for education and training. Highly realistic, problem-solving games such as Still Wakes The Deep present immersive environments that can provide an authentic experience that could be used in supplementary training.
Imagine, for example, learning about safely launching lifeboats in a crisp 3D environment like this, with no risk from weather or water (or mutants). Video games can be tailored to teach a plethora of skills that can shape careers. They don’t have to just be about entertainment.
But entertainment this definitely is. Still Wakes The Deep keeps players on edge like an interactive narrative horror movie with a fair share of jump scares and plenty of death-defying leaps, as Caz hangs by his fingernails or bolts for his life.
The game plays on a number of psychological fears including burning, fear of drowning, vertigo, infection and being munched by now fully mutated, tendril-dragging ex-crewmates.
It has a touch of Resident Evil and Aliens, and one YouTube walkthrough hails it it as “every fear in one horror game”. In a column praising the game’s brilliance, Neil Mackay of the Glasgow Herald said: “Let me deliver a quick kill-shot to the notion that games are somehow a substandard art form in comparison to the novel, theatre, film or visual arts. In many ways today the best games combine the best of each discipline.”
The Guardian’s Melinda Hetfield described it as “the Thing, but on a Scottish oil rig in the 1970s”. Which just happens to be the original pitch by Dan Pinchbeck, the studio’s co-founder. So safe to say – mission accomplished.
For me, the Scots actors really bring it to life. Bafta winners Alec Newman (famous for his portrayal of Paul Atreides in the Dune series) and comedian Karen Dunbar give fantastically convincing performances that help to build the atmosphere of dread.
It’s good to see working-class Scottish voices in all their sweary glory here, as they are not commonly represented in games. Diversity is an area that many developers are seeking to address with better representation. Some of the Scots vernacular might cause a few lost-in-translation moments for players from other countries (subtitles may be needed), but there is much grim humour to be enjoyed here that just adds to the terrifying fun.
Thomas Hainey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.