"It needs to feel like a roller coaster of trauma" – How The Chinese Room crafted Still Wakes The Deep

Still Wakes The Deep isn't your typical first-person horror game.

There's no combat, it's set on an oil rig that (quite literally) becomes a living, breathing entity, and all the player can do is traverse this ever-changing landscape, avoid a growing number of possessed crewmates and hide.

GamesIndustry.biz recently spoke with art director and project creative director John McCormack, associate art director Laura Dodds, lead designer Rob McLachlan, project technical director Louis Larsson-De Wet, and audio director Daan Hendriks about how The Chinese Room went about creating this isolated world and how they aimed to root it in emotional connection and traumatic beauty.

The decision to tell this story through a first-person perspective was an easy one.

Not only did it allow the player to connect with the game's protagonist Cameron 'Caz' McLeary, but it turns out Still Wakes the Deep was initially developed as a VR game.

"The input of gripping things and climbing in the environment survived the whole way through because the direct analogue to a VR grip is the triggers," McLachlan explains. "We were always focused on the physicality and the direct connection with the environment so that you felt you were really there in feeling that cold metal under your fingers."

The most difficult thing in making a first-person horror, however, was trying to figure out whether the game was actually scary during development.

"When you're making a horror game, you know what's behind everything that you see on the screen, so it's difficult to be scared," he explains.

"So the temptation is to make it scarier or harder because you think, 'We're making a really un-scary game and no one will find it the least bit frightening.'

"When you're making a horror game, you know what's behind the screen so it's difficult to be scared"Rob McLachlan

"You have to trust yourself to a certain degree, and you have to play test. We had everyone in The Chinese Room playing the game: people from the Vampire Bloodlines team, people from across Sumo, and playtesters. It was the results from that which made us go, 'Okay, we're actually doing the right thing'."

Aside from the horror, there's also the human connection that shines through in Still Wakes The Deep. Dodds says she was confident in the emotional power of its storytelling for players to connect with the characters.

"It felt like we were delivering something really special with the story, something that was going to go across all sorts of different game genres," she says.

McLachlan agrees, adding that they always made sure to "work inside the story" in that the scares and the most challenging moments had to work around the narrative, rather than the narrative working around the horrors.

But, as Hendriks explains, they tried to find "the perfect balance" to keep players engaged and on their toes while also feeling connected to the story.

"We were always trying to skirt the line of making the player feel uncomfortable, but then also trying to find that perfect balance where it's not too overwhelming," he says.

"I'm not sure if we found it, but I definitely remember in earlier versions of Still Wakes the Deep it was more intense. When we were mixing the game, I had to reign it in a little bit because there were times when the game was so loud it was literally hurting my ears. Which in a way I liked because I thought, 'Well, that's how it should really feel'."

But the team made sure Still Wakes the Deep would attract both hardcore horror fans and casual players that were wary of the scares.

One way they achieved this was by making sure players were given moments of recovery amidst the horrors; in one example, Caz sits in front of a portable radiator and warms his hands.

"It keeps that sync between Caz and the player, having these moments of pause and quiet, and also to reflect on all the horrible things that have happened and to think, 'Oh God, what's going to happen next?'" Dodds highlights.

"The player's imagination is so powerful, so having space for them to contemplate was really important in bringing in the pacing and moments of reflection."

McLachlan notes that the number one priority was to remind the player that they're Caz, an electrician suddenly thrown into this situation, and moments like this exemplified that.

"The player's imagination is so powerful, so having space for them to contemplate was really important"Laura Dodds

"Everyone you meet treats you like one of the crew, they don't treat you like some weird nobody that has only just turned up on their first day. They don't explain everything to you, everything feels true to life as if you are part of the crew so you don't feel like an outsider. They all bring you into their confidence straight away, and Caz brings you into his confidence."

McCormack adds that by doing this, they were able to take Caz from being an electrician who knows his craft to suddenly having no idea what to do once the entity takes over. All he has are his wits and a screwdriver.

Speaking of the screwdriver, that's about the only thing Caz has on him that could constitute as a weapon. Instead, it's only used to fix things in the story and unveil passages.

There are no weapons in Still Wakes The Deep, it's all about hiding and avoiding Caz's possessed crewmates. However, the lack of combat wasn't added to heighten the anxiety and horror of the situation.

The first portion of the game is all about the player forging these connections that Caz has made with his friends during his time on the rig either by talking to them, overhearing conversations, or looking at possessions in their cabins.

So by the time the creature starts to take over his mates, the player has formed a connection with them, too.

"If you've got empathy with them, why would you go and kill them?" Larsson-De Wet asks. "We wanted you to be torn between being scared of them and feeling for your friend that has been transformed. Killing them was never on the cards."

But if the player can't kill enemies, how do you give them agency?

"It's difficult," technical director Louis Larsson-De Wet admits. "You want to give them agency in terms of a goal, where they can go, and they can figure out their own way of getting there. But we also want to make certain things more difficult. It's hard because the AI that's driving how the puppet decides where it should go, when it can hear you and then investigate, it was very random."

Larsson-De Wet goes on to explain how they tried to rely on letting the AI do its thing, but sometimes it would result in the puppet ignoring the player entirely.

"So we ended up with a mix of [relying on AI] and scripting some of the sequences to curate how the experience would be so that every time you play it, it would be a good playthrough."

For example, associate art director Laura Dodds recalls watching a tester play a sequence where by leaving the AI to do its thing, the puppet ended up chasing the player up the stairs just before they're able to escape.

"I didn't even know it could go up the stairs," she says. "After that, we were like, 'Everyone should get that experience because it's terrifying'."

Larsson-De Wet adds: "When you're going through that section, Caz just about makes it and that's what we wanted the player to feel, that it's just about surviving."

And it's all about surviving in one environment – an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea. You're either inside or outside the rig during the game, which can be difficult to keep compelling. The team approached this by not only drastically changing the environment as the story progresses and the entity takes over, but by making the rig become a character itself.

The team exemplified this further with a system that Larsson-De Wet refers to as the "horror clock" – something audio director Daan Hendriks expands on further.

"You have this entity that comes on board and is such an unassailable thing," he says. "It's essentially transforming not only the crew, but also the oil rig itself and even the weather around it, exerting its influence over time.

"We built a system that creates a clock towards the end of the game, and a lot of the environmental elements are playing in sync with it. The sound emitting from the creature is like a heartbeat which is the beginning of the clock, and all the other sounds play in tune to that, including the rain which is slowly modulating around the rig and the creature which is pulsating in sync with it. That all played into the idea of this thing – we don't understand what it is, but it's completely overtaking everything."

This aspect blends into the team's idea of producing a curated horror experience, by using a living, breathing environment to their advantage.

"We spent a lot of time orchestrating and really paying attention to the pacing of things," Dodds adds. "If we've just had a really high octane climbing section, we then keep the player scared but in a different way because then they're going back inside where it's claustrophobic and there's something in there with them – keeping the tension high but still having a lot of light and shade."

McCormack highlights the importance of that one-on-one connection between the player and Caz, which he describes as being "the number one pillar of the game."

"You're always him, you're always seeing things through his eyes," he notes. "You're not playing as yourself – there was never a third-person cutscene or breakaway, you were always in there so that you're always connected.

"There's also a half-life to horror," art director John McCormack continues. "You can only be scared for so long, and you don't want to outstay your welcome. There's some horror games that can go on for hours and hours, and it can become mechanical and they're great. But we wanted Still Wakes The Deep to be memorable and visceral. It needs to make you feel like you've been put through a roller coaster of trauma – that you come out the other end and you're just exhausted and upset."

"We wanted Still Wakes The Deep to be memorable and visceral. It needs to make you feel like you've been put through a roller coaster of trauma"John McCormack

But there always has to be a balance, as Larsson-De Wet says.

"It has to be dangerous, it has to be scary, but we don't want to kill the player all the time because that gets boring as well," he notes. "So we always have let the player just about survive and get through it, but it's difficult to get that balance."

As for how Still Wakes The Deep has been received, McCormack says it's been "incredibly vindicating" for the team, as there were moments where they were questioning themselves about whether players would connect with their vision.

But, they quickly came to realise they were making something different.

"We're doing something weird here," McCormack says. "We're doing something that's small and bite-sized, and it's a roller coaster of emotional and physical trauma. We thought, 'This might not land.' And when it did, it resonated with people – it's been brilliant."

Despite its reception and the team's love for the world and characters of Still Wakes the Deep, there doesn't seem to be a sequel on the cards.

"The entire team has spent four years living on an oil rig, building the pipes and all that," McCormack notes. "I don't think we'll do another oil rig."

There are a "whole lot of things on the table at the moment," he says, with the reception of Still Wakes the Deep and the desires of the team being the main factors that will shape their next game.

"We'll reflect on it, then dive in again," McCormack says. "We do creative callouts in the studio where everyone gets to pitch their ideas. We're at that stage now, just feeling it out and listening to players, talking to people in the industry and seeing where we go from there."

Dodds adds: "It's safe to say [these ideas] are always a little bit weird, though. They're always off the wall, then everyone realises they're all into it."