Developer The Chinese Room
Publisher Secret Mode
Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series
Release June 18
Leaving the subtitles settings on their default ‘English’, we quickly discover that they apply a filter to the script. As Glaswegian protagonist Caz McLeary ponders how much he misses his ‘weans’ on the mainland, for instance, the text replaces the word with ‘kids’. Our first instinct is that this feels heavy-handed, sucking flavour from speech that strives to manifest a specific sense of place and time. Yet we soon realise that it’s not only optional (you can select a one-to-one transcript instead) but also likely essential for those less familiar with the game’s Caledonian dialects. It’s one of a few areas, in fact, where Still Wakes The Deep makes small compromises so that it may commit full-bloodedly to the rest of its setting and concept.
The key to this firstperson horror tale for The Chinese Room is doubtless fidelity, which begins at the dialogue and spreads outwards. In Caz’s home-from-home, the Beira D oil rig, chatter shuttles
