Beware, friends. Madness and doom lurk within the salt-worn crevices of the latest survival horror epic, Still Wakes the Deep. I’ve glimpsed the stygian horrors simmering beneath its murky surface, and can confirm this title will plunge players into an abyssal realm of maritime terror most profound.
The year is 1975, the setting an isolated oil rig stranded in the raging darkness of the North Sea. Picture an industrial purgatory beset on all sides by carnivorous waves, groaning metal and quaking cynicism. This rig is a mechanical prison overshadowed by existential doom, populated by weathered souls who know only a watery grave awaits.Their faces tell the tale – etched with the hollow dread of those living on borrowed time.
But despite their fatalism, nothing could prepare them for the true scope of horror lurking in the lightless depths surrounding their fragile haven. For in their blind drilling, they’ve awakened an ancient evil beyond human comprehension. It stirred from eldritch slumber in response to their transgression, ascending from fathomless pits man was not meant to disturb. Now its alien presence haunts the rig’s twisted corridors, leaving no corner safe from its encroaching malice.
To survive this Stygian trial, players must steel their nerves against maddening puzzles and traverse the decaying metal labyrinth, always fleeing the relentless menace in their midst. But make no mistake – this is not a foe that can be fought or fled indefinitely. How will you meet your end aboard this creaking tomb of rust and bone?
Still Wakes exudes the uncanny atmosphere of 70’s British television, evoking surreal classics like Sapphire & Steel. The haunting musical score and unnerving aesthetics instill existential gloom long before the cosmic horror surfaces. Indeed, the hypnotic waves and howling wind become omnipresent threats – manifestations of the unseen evil’s growing power over frail human souls.
Though slippery steel floors and faulty machinery offer many paths to doom, the true terror here is psychological. Still Wakes expertly induces the paralysis of facing forces beyond comprehension. It whispers that our planet’s darkest depths hide untold dangers, razor-toothed leviathans from another age. We are but motes of dust floating over their ancient domain.
This is slow-burning, cerebral terror refined to its purest essence. There will be no gory cheap shocks or juvenile jump scares within Still Wakes’ murky halls – only harrowing encounters with forces mortals were not meant to behold. It builds an atmosphere of smothering dread and existential futility more torturous than any visceral horror.
Indeed, the Cthulhu Mythos seems a clear inspiration for the elusive creature and Still Wakes’ themes of humanity’s insignificance and ignorance. Protagonists trapped on remote islands, doomed by meddling with forces beyond their comprehension – the parallels to Lovecraft’s stories are pronounced. Axfendyl’s previous Pathologic games also expertly merged disease, madness and hopeless decay.
Make no mistake – Still Wakes the Deep marks a new high-water mark for eldritch gaming terror in both aesthetics and narrative. To be enveloped within its marine hell will crush your psyche under oppressive waves of cosmic nihilism. You may escape with your life, but the scars on your psyche will run deeper than the deepest oceanic scar.
When this salt-corroded nightmare finally surfaces next year, brace yourselves for a plunge into stygian waters from which you may never truly resurface. As the hull creaks and groans under endless assault from the abyssal deep, remember – even death may not spare you from Still Wakes’ infectious horrors. They will seep into your essence and torment you in Endless dreams long after escaping its sinking coffin of steel.
When the stars are right, nothing can stop the Old Ones’ reawakening. Their cyclopean ruins now litter the lightless sea floor, primordial and patiently waiting. Do not rouse them from slumber as Still Wakes’ doomed rig workers did. There are currents beneath the waves no vessel can withstand…only sharks will feast on what remains.
So steel your nerves and stock up on sanity potions, friends. When the time comes, will you answer Cthulhu’s call, or simply descend into watery madness as the rig collapses around you? Either way, Still Wakes the Deep prepared to grapple with forces far beyond your comprehension. The creatures that writhe and twist in endless fathoms below are unknowable…but their hour approaches swiftly.
Surrender All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
I’ve seen what stirs in Still Wakes the Deep, and must warn you – abandon all hope. No mind can remain whole after plunging into its maritime vortex of Lovecraftian terror. Your only choices aboard this floating steel coffin are how you will meet your end – by your own hand, the encroaching waves, or the fangs of cosmic entities.
Consider the fell fortunes of Still Wakes’ cast of doomed seamen. Their weathered faces tell a bleak tale – one of existential gloom and acceptance that a watery grave soon awaits. They resigned themselves to dice with death daily, believing it honor enough to perish wrestling crude from the abyssal plains.
Little did they know a far crueler fate lurked beneath the crushing black waves surrounding their solitary rig. For in their blind drilling, they’ve roused an antediluvian evil – a blasphemy rising from lightless depths in response to their unwitting transgression. It stirred from a slumber older than humanity itself. Now it comes to exact vengeance.
No philosopher or mystic could grasp the reality-rending proportions of this entity, let alone 70s roughnecks. Their pragmatism offers no defense against a visitor from fathomless realms beyond. It haunts their world yet defies all earthly categorization. To comprehend its existence at all is to court catastrophe.
Still Wakes’ ominous seascapes hint at the scope of this threat – our planet harbors forces dwarfing the collective human experience. Our sciences only scrape the surface of secretes writhing in the deepest trenches. We float over them only by the grace of cosmic indifference. But that grace is fleeting – soon the stars will align for their resurgence.
So make your peace and bid farewell to loved ones before entering Still Wakes’ steel purgatory, friends. Death may prove a mercy compared to the deforming psychic trauma of contact with its eldritch stowaway. Those immersed in its abyssal nightmare will grapple forces beyond comprehension, shattering fragile mortal minds.
Indeed, no common ghost or drowned revenant haunts Still Wakes’ rig. This intelligence knows no human motive, mercy or morality – only the madness of the deep. Like Lovecraft’s cosmic deities, it exists beyond our narrow spectrum of space and time. We are as ants to it.
When its cyclopean machinations finally surface, brace for encounters catapulting you far from the familiar shores of sanity. But also savor the revelation – to see even a shred of the universe’s grandeur shimmering beneath the waves. We will drown in our ignorance all the same.
So batten down the soul and prepare to grapple despair, friends. When Cthulhu rises, will you answer the call or descend into gibbering psychosis? Either way, after Still Wakes the Deep envelops you in its salt-worn hell, the mortal realm will seem a little less real, a little more deeply wrong.
That lurking unease will echo through your essence long after escaping the rig’s corroded coffin. It will remind you that our planet yet harbors forces from epochs preceding humanity…and they were here first. We merely dwell on fleeting sufferance above their ancient dominion. One day their patience will end.
Until then, know there are currents no vessel can withstand and depths no light can pierce – yet their inhabitants see all, probing our minds with a thousand unblinking eyes. Still Wakes the Deep brings their truth nearer. Will you stare back, or flee gibbering into the roaring darkness? The choice is yours…but oblivion embraces all in the end.
Submit to the tides of madness, and you may meet its horrors on their terms. There are mysteries beneath the waves no human tongue was made to pronounce. But listen – in the marine thunder their voices begin to stir, rising to finally meet our outstretched grasp…
