Still Wakes The Deep is not your typical first-person horror sport.
There isn’t any fight, it is set on an oil rig that (fairly actually) turns into a residing, respiratory entity, and all of the participant can do is traverse this ever-changing panorama, keep away from a rising quantity of possessed crewmates and conceal.
GamesIndustry.biz lately spoke with artwork director and venture artistic director John McCormack, affiliate artwork director Laura Dodds, lead designer Rob McLachlan, venture technical director Louis Larsson-De Moist, and audio director Daan Hendriks about how The Chinese Room went about creating this remoted world and the way they aimed to root it in emotional connection and traumatic magnificence.
The resolution to inform this story by means of a first-person perspective was a straightforward one.
Not solely did it permit the participant to join with the sport’s protagonist Cameron ‘Caz’ McLeary, however it seems Still Wakes the Deep was initially developed as a VR sport.
“The enter of gripping issues and climbing within the surroundings survived the entire means by means of as a result of the direct analogue to a VR grip is the triggers,” McLachlan explains. “We had been all the time targeted on the physicality and the direct reference to the surroundings so that you just felt you had been actually there in feeling that chilly metallic below your fingers.”
The most tough factor in making a first-person horror, nonetheless, was attempting to work out whether or not the sport was truly scary throughout improvement.
“If you’re making a horror sport, you realize what’s behind the whole lot that you just see on the display screen, so it is tough to be scared,” he explains.
“So the temptation is to make it scarier or tougher since you suppose, ‘We’re making a actually un-scary sport and nobody will discover it in the slightest degree horrifying.’
“If you’re making a horror sport, you realize what’s behind the display screen so it is tough to be scared”Rob McLachlan
“You might have to belief your self to a sure diploma, and you’ve got to play check. We had everybody in The Chinese Room taking part in the sport: folks from the Vampire Bloodlines group, folks from throughout Sumo, and playtesters. It was the outcomes from that which made us go, ‘Okay, we’re truly doing the proper factor’.”
Other than the horror, there’s additionally the human connection that shines by means of in Still Wakes The Deep. Dodds says she was assured within the emotional energy of its storytelling for gamers to join with the characters.
“It felt like we had been delivering one thing actually particular with the story, one thing that was going to go throughout all kinds of completely different sport genres,” she says.
McLachlan agrees, including that they all the time made positive to “work contained in the story” in that the scares and essentially the most difficult moments had to work across the narrative, quite than the narrative working across the horrors.
However, as Hendrick explains, they tried to discover “the right stability” to hold gamers engaged and on their toes whereas additionally feeling linked to the story.
“We had been all the time attempting to skirt the road of making the participant feel uncomfortable, however then additionally attempting to discover that good stability the place it is not too overwhelming,” he says.
“I am undecided if we discovered it, however I positively keep in mind in earlier variations of Still Wakes the Deep it was extra intense. After we had been mixing the sport, I had to reign it in a little bit as a result of there have been occasions when the sport was so loud it was actually hurting my ears. Which in a means I preferred as a result of I believed, ‘Effectively, that is the way it ought to actually feel’.”
However the group made positive Still Wakes the Deep would appeal to each hardcore horror followers and informal gamers that had been cautious of the scares.
A method they achieved this was by ensuring gamers got moments of restoration amidst the horrors; in a single instance, Caz sits in entrance of a transportable radiator and warms his palms.
“It retains that sync between Caz and the participant, having these moments of pause and quiet, and likewise to replicate on all of the horrible issues which have occurred and to suppose, ‘Oh God, what is going on to occur subsequent?'” Dodds highlights.
“The participant’s creativeness is so highly effective, so having area for them to ponder was actually vital in bringing within the pacing and moments of reflection.”
McLachlan notes that the primary precedence was to remind the participant that they are Caz, an electrician all of a sudden thrown into this case, and moments like this exemplified that.
“The participant’s creativeness is so highly effective, so having area for them to ponder was actually vital”Laura Dodds
“Everybody you meet treats you like one of the crew, they do not deal with you like some bizarre no person that has solely simply turned up on their first day. They do not clarify the whole lot to you, the whole lot feels true to life as in case you are half of the crew so you do not feel like an outsider. All of them convey you into their confidence immediately, and Caz brings you into his confidence.”
McCormack provides that by doing this, they had been ready to take Caz from being an electrician who is aware of his craft to all of a sudden having no thought what to do as soon as the entity takes over. All he has are his wits and a screwdriver.
Talking of the screwdriver, that is about the one factor Caz has on him that might represent as a weapon. As a substitute, it is solely used to sort things within the story and unveil passages.
There aren’t any weapons in Still Wakes The Deep, it is all about hiding and avoiding Caz’s possessed crewmates. Nonetheless, the shortage of fight wasn’t added to heighten the nervousness and horror of the state of affairs.
The first portion of the sport is all concerning the participant forging these connections that Caz has made together with his pals throughout his time on the rig both by speaking to them, overhearing conversations, or taking a look at possessions of their cabins.
So by the point the creature begins to take over his mates, the participant has shaped a reference to them, too.
“If you happen to’ve bought empathy with them, why would you go and kill them?” Larsson-De Moist asks. “We wished you to be torn between being scared of them and feeling in your good friend that has been reworked. Killing them was by no means on the playing cards.”
But when the participant cannot kill enemies, how do you give them company?
“It is tough,” technical director Louis Larsson-De Moist admits. “You need to give them company in phrases of a objective, the place they’ll go, they usually can work out their very own means of getting there. However we additionally need to make sure issues tougher. It is onerous as a result of the AI that is driving how the puppet decides the place it ought to go, when it might probably hear you after which examine, it was very random.”
Larsson-De Moist goes on to clarify how they tried to depend on letting the AI do its factor, however generally it could end result within the puppet ignoring the participant totally.
“So we ended up with a combine of [relying on AI] and scripting some of the sequences to curate how the expertise could be so that each time you play it, it could be a good playthrough.”
For instance, affiliate artwork director Laura Dodds recollects watching a tester play a sequence the place by leaving the AI to do its factor, the puppet ended up chasing the participant up the steps simply earlier than they’re ready to escape.
“I did not even understand it might go up the steps,” she says. “After that, we had been like, ‘Everybody ought to get that have as a result of it is terrifying’.”
Larsson-De Moist provides: “If you’re going by means of that part, Caz nearly makes it and that is what we wished the participant to feel, that it is nearly surviving.”
And it is all about surviving in a single surroundings – an oil rig within the center of the North Sea. You are both inside or outdoors the rig through the sport, which could be tough to hold compelling. The group approached this by not solely drastically altering the surroundings because the story progresses and the entity takes over, however by making the rig grow to be a character itself.
The group exemplified this additional with a system that Larsson-De Moist refers to because the “horror clock” – one thing audio director Daan Hendricks expands on additional.
“You might have this entity that comes on board and is such an unassailable factor,” he says. “It is basically reworking not solely the crew, but additionally the oil rig itself and even the climate round it, exerting its affect over time.
“We constructed a system that creates a clock in the direction of the tip of the sport, and a lot of the environmental parts are taking part in in sync with it. The sound emitting from the creature is like a heartbeat which is the start of the clock, and all the opposite sounds play in tune to that, together with the rain which is slowly modulating across the rig and the creature which is pulsating in sync with it. That every one performed into the concept of this factor – we do not perceive what it’s, however it’s utterly overtaking the whole lot.”
This facet blends into the group’s thought of producing a curated horror expertise, through the use of a residing, respiratory surroundings to their benefit.
“We spent a lot of time orchestrating and actually paying consideration to the pacing of issues,” Dodds provides. “If we have simply had a actually excessive octane climbing part, we then hold the participant scared however in a completely different means as a result of then they are going again inside the place it is claustrophobic and there is one thing in there with them – preserving the stress excessive however nonetheless having a lot of mild and shade.”
McCormack highlights the significance of that one-on-one connection between the participant and Caz, which he describes as being “the primary pillar of the sport.”
“You are all the time him, you are all the time seeing issues by means of his eyes,” he notes. “You are not taking part in as your self – there was by no means a third-person cutscene or breakaway, you had been all the time in there so that you just’re all the time linked.
“There’s additionally a half-life to horror,” artwork director John McCormack continues. “You’ll be able to solely be scared for thus lengthy, and you don’t need to outstay your welcome. There’s some horror video games that may go on for hours and hours, and it might probably grow to be mechanical they usually’re nice. However we wished Still Wakes The Deep to be memorable and visceral. It needs to make you feel like you’ve got been put by means of a roller coaster of trauma – that you just come out the opposite finish and also you’re simply exhausted and upset.”
“We wished Still Wakes The Deep to be memorable and visceral. It needs to make you feel like you’ve got been put by means of a roller coaster of trauma”John McCormack
However there all the time has to be a stability, as Larsson-De Moist says.
“It has to be harmful, it has to be scary, however we do not need to kill the participant on a regular basis as a result of that will get boring as nicely,” he notes. “So we all the time have let the participant nearly survive and get by means of it, however it’s tough to get that stability.”
As for a way Still Wakes The Deep has been obtained, McCormack says it has been “extremely vindicating” for the group, as there have been moments the place they had been questioning themselves about whether or not gamers would join with their imaginative and prescient.
However, they shortly got here to realise they had been making one thing completely different.
“We’re doing one thing bizarre right here,” McCormack says. “We’re doing one thing that is small and bite-sized, and it is a roller coaster of emotional and bodily trauma. We thought, ‘This won’t land.’ And when it did, it resonated with folks – it has been good.”
Regardless of its reception and the group’s love for the world and characters of Still Wakes the Deep, there does not appear to be a sequel on the playing cards.
“The whole group has spent 4 years residing on an oil rig, constructing the pipes and all that,” McCormack notes. “I do not suppose we’ll do one other oil rig.”
There are a “entire lot of issues on the desk in the meanwhile,” he says, with the reception of Still Wakes the Deep and the wishes of the group being the primary elements that can form their subsequent sport.
“We’ll replicate on it, then dive in once more,” McCormack says. “We do artistic callouts within the studio the place everybody will get to pitch their concepts. We’re at that stage now, simply feeling it out and listening to gamers, speaking to folks within the trade and seeing the place we go from there.”
Dodds provides: “It is secure to say [these ideas] are all the time a little bit bizarre, although. They’re all the time off the wall, then everybody realises they’re all into it.”