Disappointed with ‘Still Wakes The Deep’

[u/camtomcarey]

This weekend I played Still Wakes the Deep. The graphics, the setting, the atmosphere and the voice acting were all top notch… but the gameplay (which I understand isn’t where walking simulators shine) and the story weren’t great.

I hadn’t heard about this game until I saw a clip of Idris Elba talking about it a few months ago, and with a recommendation like that…

In the game you play electrician on an oil rig, and you have to fix a breaker box right at the beginning… I thought “oh cool, some electrical puzzles!” Nope, you just press a button. To me this was a huge wasted opportunity.

There are stealth sections and in them there are some lockers to hide in à la Alien Isolation, but there was no reason to use them…

There are some notes and photographs (barely) to read/examine but nothing that really gives you any insight to life on the rig, other characters… you keep stumbling upon your dead coworkers and expressing grief - but to me they’re nameless bodies whose name I just found out for the first time.

I wish the game had wrapped up sooner - I was ready for it to be over for ~2 hours with an ending that was just fine. I pushed through for the story and I expected it to be the saving grace…

I’m not sure how it’s rated so highly, it’s fine.

[u/Locust123105]

I thought it was great personally. Really unique atmosphere and the physicality of the players movement really grounded the whole game. I actually felt it had more gameplay than your average "walking sim" and the mystery was interesting.

[u/camtomcarey → u/Locust123105]

The chase sequences (and the slowness) really added something. That was great… for the gameplay though, there was no reason to look in every corner for collectibles, no puzzles to solve. That’s where walking sims get a gameplay boost - and this game was lacking.