A Deep Dive into Despair
I have a lot of time for The Chinese Room. From their debut game, Dear Esther, to the award-winning Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, it’s obvious that they are great storytellers, capable of putting together amazing soundtracks and cutting-edge visuals.
A year or so ago, they delivered Still Wakes the Deep to the Xbox world; a first-person, action-adventure story set on an oil rig in the 1970s off the coast of Scotland. We loved that game, but were even more pleasantly surprised that there is now an expansion package, coming in the form of Siren’s Rest.
Below the Surface
Still Wakes the Deep: Siren’s Rest provides extra story to the base game, now set a decade after the tragic events of Still Wakes the Deep. It is now 1986. You start the game under the sea in a diving bell and play the part of Mhairi, a professional diver. She is looking for her dad, who was part of the crew that went down with the oil rig a decade earlier. She is determined, with her colleague Rob, to find answers as to why the disaster happened and bring some comfort to the relatives of those who were lost.
Upon discovering the wreck of the oil rig below, Mhairi dives down and enters it. Inside are all its rooms and locations, where bodies lie and bits of memorabilia can be collected for the families. Soon, Mhairi discovers things that mix reality with a sort of dream world, and she has the feeling that something is watching her. Or is it hunting her?
Emotional Depths
The story and writing, as is usual with any games from this team, are excellent. The game features well-rounded characters and has a very British feel. And nicely, they don’t lay everything out for you story-wise, instead requiring you to do some work to piece the threads together. The ending of the main game was emotionally effective, but I think this piece of DLC surpasses it with a real tearjerker in the final scene.
Underwater Exploration and Tools
Gameplay is all done in the first person, and a lot of Still Wakes the Deep: Siren’s Rest is spent underwater. Initially, you are connected to an umbilical cord from the diving bell. You can swim forward and occasionally propel yourself faster by using bits of wreckage as leverage.
You are looking to collect people’s belongings and clues as to what happened to the rig. Any bodies you find you need to photograph along the way. And Siren’s Rest has a slightly open-world feel to it, as you have a main objective but are encouraged to explore, particularly in the early part.
You get some tools to help you along the way. First up is the camera; which, as you’d suspect, allows you to take photos of anything you want. Then you have a soldering gun to burn off barnacles so that you can open doorways or hatches. Later on, you get flares to see through the darkness, or utilised for another reason, one that I won’t spoil. Be sure you understand that these are very much key to survival.
Oppressive Beauty
I liked how Still Wakes the Deep: Siren’s Rest makes the switch to an underwater setting in terms of its visuals. It looks and feels oppressive, dark, and cold, which is exactly the intention. There are a couple of moments where the game transitions into a more ethereal and dreamy setting, and the developers execute this brilliantly. The final visuals are superb as well.
The soundscape is immense, again, as we have come to expect from this developer, with amazing underwater effects and a beautiful folk ballad for the final track. The voice work is consistently good, and Kate Saxon does an amazing job directing the small cast of actors for this story.
A Stunning Dive into Emotional Horror
Dive in to Still Wakes the Deep: Siren’s Rest and you’ll be totally hooked by the few hours it takes to run. There are a few tiny bugs, and you can find yourself lost a lot, but overall the story is tight, exciting, and a great extension of the Still Wakes the Deep universe. The visuals are great, and the sound design, from the effects to the music, is – once more – world-class.
Siren’s Rest is a stunning piece of DLC; a pleasant surprise that fans of Still Wakes the Deep will love.
Links You Need
Revisit the Wreck of Still Wakes the Deep in the Siren’s Rest Expansion – https://www.thexboxhub.com/revisit-the-wreck-of-still-wakes-the-deep-in-the-sirens-rest-expansion/
Buy Siren’s Rest – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/still-wakes-the-deep-sirens-rest/9p8dbn3p579c
