The sea is actually the blue skin of the world, yet we know so little about its depths. Like the vastness of space, it is filled with mystery. With both comes the unknown – and therefore horror. In Still awakens the depththe latest first-person horror from The Chinese Room, the sea births a mysterious terror that takes over an oil rig, and the workers must fight to survive.
Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, players are introduced to main character McLearly, the troublesome electrician of a Scottish oil rig. From the start, I was incredibly impressed with the voice acting, writing, and performance. Most of the crew are Glaswegians, who use colloquial terms and slang, which the game warns can be ‘translated’ by enabling subtitles. McLearly (Alec Newman, who plays Cyberpunk 2077‘s Adam Smasher and Divinity: original sin 2‘s Beast, among others) is a very likable protagonist. When we first meet him, he’s being fired for causing a brawl on land that led the police to the oil rig, much to his boss’ dismay. As he takes off in a helicopter, the oil rig hits something – or something hits the oil rig – far below the surface.
From there, everything turns into chaos as bioluminescent tentacles and large leaves that resemble seaweed begin to cover the entire rig. But when it interacts with humans, it absorbs them and turns them into gruesome monsters from John Carpenter’s movies. The thing.
McLearly must use his skills as an electrician to navigate his way out of the nautical nightmare. Environmental puzzles – which involve turning levers and wheels, putting out fires and pushing and pulling in the correct order – take up most of your time, amid the groaning and falling apart of the gear and the screams of changed friends and colleagues resonates. the metal corridors.
The game is wonderfully terrifying at times and I was impressed by the creature designs. Friends you meet early in the game now scream and express the threats and concerns they had when they were fully human, their flesh permanently tethered to the growing alien threat that has taken over the scum. (It’s never explained what the threat, monster, or virus is, only that it comes from the sea.) When you’re stuck in these hallways with the monsters, all McLearly can do is hide, throw objects, and sneak by. There is no combat and insta-death, which can be somewhat frustrating. You’re never sure when or where a monster will hear you, and the game seems to have a very strict, internally consistent idea of how to succeed in cat-and-mouse levels.
The game is incredibly tactile. The intuitive button mapping always made me feel embodied in McLearly, from pulling levers to climbing and sliding down ladders. The developers have done a great job of putting you in McLearly’s shoes, allowing you to see his entire body as he climbs and crawls. McLearly unscrews the vents, grabs hold to pull himself through dark water, slips and slides, screams and curses as he tries to make jumps. In addition to feeling like I was embodying him, McLearly’s reactions to what he was doing also seemed like he was embodying him. me: Taking a huge jump meant I cursed at times and, hilariously, McLearly shouted the same thing when he landed.
As with previous Chinese Room titles, the original orchestral score is powerful and loud when you finally hear it. But not like Everyone has gone to the Rapture, where Jessica Curry’s score did so much to tell that story, here it’s muted, with few waves of music rushing in. Much of the atmosphere comes from the collapse of the installation, with the sound of destruction serving as the music of destruction rather than a powerful sound. choir. Jason Graves (composer for the horror titles Supermassive and The Order: 1886) does well here, even if it doesn’t live up to Curry’s work.
The oil rig itself is impressively detailed, with its lifelike textures and appropriate signage, old telephones with switches and realistic monitors. Even though you can’t interact with much of the world, it still feels like it was lived in, a place that people had occupied and made their own – especially when visiting the quarters of individual crew members.
The level of detail, combined with the excellent sound direction, really made me feel like I was inside the installation. You’ll be forced to return to areas, and your familiarity will help navigate a level: doors and hallways you walked through untouched are now blocked by rubble, or your friend has turned into a giant tentacled monster. I appreciated the developers’ strict focus on one specific location, with limited areas, allowing them to demonstrate slow destruction in a tangible way.
Although the genre is nowhere new, Still awakens the depth is a worthy addition to the horror canon – and further proof that the great emptiness of the ocean is something I want to avoid.
Still awakens the depth launches June 18 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.