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Forbes
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Still Wakes The Deep: Siren's Rest' DLC Review: Dreading Water
'Siren's Rest' is a great DLC for 'Still Wakes the Deep', though it's not without it's foibles. Still Wakes the Deep wasn't just an acting masterpiece — it was 2024's best indie horror game, even in the face of a packed field. The fact that it finally received DLC with Siren's Rest, released today (June 18), is no surprise, even if its announcement just last week proved to be. Taking place ten years after the tragic, spooky, and body-horror-laden events that led to the demise of the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland, Siren's Rest promised to carry the strengths of its forerunner underwater, as you hop into a diving bell to inspect the wreckage and, it seems, bring closure for the victim's loved ones, or at least some answers. In its 1.5-to-two-hour runthrough, it pretty much nails it, even if it doesn't learn from the occasional missteps that took the shine off Still Wakes the Deep's otherwise insidious storybuilding and atmosphere. Simply going back to Still Wakes the Deep fills you with dread. As soon as you choose Siren's Rest from the opening menu — complete with the intact Beira D oil rig — the game immediately plunges you beneath the waves and you think ah, well, this sucks already, as you relive flashbacks of the main game. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder It's May 14, 1986 — less than a month after the Chernobyl disaster, but also a few days before I was born, so it's a bad time whichever way you look at it. You're Mhairi, a plucky young explorer in a diving bell, being lowered by your coffee-obsessed colleague Hans, who patches through on comms. Meanwhile, fellow underwater compadre Rob is already outside, having plotted your descent to the Beira D. Conversations are impeccable and believable, but also uneasy to listen to; from the beginning, you realize the team has no idea of the horrors that occurred on the platform before its capitulation, but then again, why would they? Once you're given the freedom to move, you'll most likely go to the video settings and switch to performance mode to overcome the shoddy frame rate. Much like the original game, Siren's Rest thrives away from 'quality' mode, but only if you keep motion blur and film grain on for that perfect, throwback look. Set design is impeccable, but it struggles to perform in quality mode. There's more than a touch of Control in this DLC's art direction, between its all-caps titles for its acts and the ominous red lights provided by flares — which become an ever-greater part of the experience — yet it quickly establishes itself as independent from both Still Wakes the Deep and other underwater exploration game, even those grittier outings like Soma or Narcosis. The combination of now-outdated technology, such as your umbilical cord and aging torch, along with the sheer grubbiness and low-lit details of your surroundings, only enhances the direness that your 'adventure' promises. Admittedly, the umbilical cable is one of the first things to break immersion. Initially, it acts as an unknowing antagonist — it looks like an otherworldly tentacle that'll give you the occasional accidental jumpscare in the first few minutes of your trek — but once you get into more complex terrain, it doesn't work like it should, routinely snagging on invisible elements or parsing through solid walls — far from ideal, given Siren's Rest's major focus on optional discoveries. Still Wakes the Deep is, ironically, alive and well in the death and decay of past characters. Between Mhairi, Hans, and Rob, you identify the bodies of the fallen along the way, though only a small handful are on the main story route. Level design, especially in the early stages, thrives on your indecision. Exploration is regularly a binary choice of direction, where the optional dead-end goes on for just a bit too long before you learn if it's a discoverable extra or the core path. You might find yourself turning back to make damn sure you haven't missed a collectible or, more gruesomely, a dead body to photograph. Say cheese! You really don't want to miss these sidebars, either. Characters of the dead are given backstories, like an episode of Bones played out in real time. The highlighting reticles for discoverables are thankfully forgiving — ideal for the murky depths that would otherwise hide them. Nonetheless, after the first 15 minutes, you already feel like you've missed something. Siren's Rest's story building is unsurprisingly excellent, but in offering a less linear approach than its predecessor, you're prone to missing key sights, sounds, or jump scares. The creeping increase in otherworldly formations is immaculate, underpinned by blink-and-you'll miss-them suggestions of horror, usually enhanced by gorgeous lighting. However, the 360-degree field of vision from your underwater antics means you can miss what you're meant to see, rather than what you're distracted by. The first two potential 'scares' were lost on me as I wasn't facing the desired direction; I assume I was unknowingly drifting towards an animation's designated trigger point. All the while, prompts continue to break immersion by taking up too much room, or staying on screen; sometimes, they appear too late. Then there are the glitches and oddities — I can forgive the umbilical's apparent understanding of quantum physics, but a couple of other issues required restarts. In one case, opening a specific rusted door made the right analog stick stop working. One open route sees your torch go out and randomly kills you, with no prompt or reason to believe you've done anything wrong. Sure, it's probably a case of poor signposting, but the following reload trapped me behind a wall. Siren's Rest effortlessly shifts reality with gravity-defying rooms and spaces. Then, as things ramp up in the third act — and without spoiling what's to come in these later stages of Siren's Rest — luck plays a significant part in the experience, to the point you don't know what you're doing wrong. Still, you get there in the end. For $12, Still Wakes the Deep's Siren's Rest DLC has some great moments. However, it falls a tad short, both in length and in comparison to the original game — not least with those extremes of fear, loneliness, and inhumanity, which never feel dialled anywhere close to 10. Still, after completing Siren's Rest, I restarted the original campaign. I'm already two hours in, and not only does this latest outing make me appreciate The Chinese Room's 2024 masterstroke, but it'll force me to return to Siren's Rest very soon, and with fresher memories. Maybe the second time's the real charm — it's already proving to be the case with Still Wakes the Deep.
Tom's Guide
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
My favorite horror game of 2024 just got a new DLC — but Siren's Rest drifts too far from what made Still Wakes the Deep terrifying
Still Wakes the Deep earned a spot on our best games of 2024 list, specifically in the horror category (sorry, Silent Hill 2). It hits all the right horror notes: intense scares, visceral gore, and voice performances that take the experience to another level. So naturally, when I heard about Siren's Rest, the compelling new DLC, I was ready to dive in (literally). I want to say that I loved it, that I had a great experience, and that it's a DLC I certainly won't forget anytime soon. But unfortunately, Siren's Rest didn't feel as impactful as I had hoped, and since I enjoyed the base game so much, I have to admit I felt a bit gutted. That said, Siren's Rest is still a solid DLC and worth playing if you're a fan of the base game and want something short and sweet to enjoy one evening. This time, the story takes place below the surface, where you explore the wreckage of the Beira D investigation-style, and it's certainly a compelling experience. From swimming through decaying corridors to collecting mementos of the dead to return to their families, there are several intriguing aspects to this DLC. But I can't help feeling its overall purpose fails to fully shine through. Still Wakes the Deep: Siren's Rest: $11 @ SteamStill Wakes the Deep: Siren's Rest is a 2‑hour narrative DLC set in 1986. You play as Mhairi, leading a deep‑sea saturation dive into the Beira D wreckage to recover remains, investigate the crew's fate, and uncover answers in haunting underwater ruins. The best part of Still Wakes the Deep: Siren's Rest is its storytelling style, and I'm sure fans of investigative games will definitely enjoy piecing together clues and exploring the sunken oil rig filled with secrets. You're essentially solving a mystery, even though you already know the outcome. As you descend into the depths, you confront not only the physical challenges of navigating the wreckage but also psychological ones, including paranoia and the unreliability of memory. Set in 1986, over a decade after the events of the original game, you assume the role of Mhairi, the leader of a saturation dive team who is tasked with exploring the sunken remains of the Beira D oil rig in the North Sea. The mission aims to uncover the fate of the crew and recover what remains of their passing. As you descend into the depths, you confront not only the physical challenges of navigating the wreckage but also psychological ones, including thalassophobia, paranoia, and the unreliability of memory. In this DLC, you engage in forensic exploration which means collecting mementos, photographing human remains, and piecing together the crew's final moments. This type of gameplay is actually very compelling, and you almost feel like a detective breaking into parts of the wreckage, swimming through the corridors into different rooms, and piecing together clues about what happened to the crew. Communication with a diving partner and a dive support supervisor is maintained through fragile 1986 undersea technology, meaning part of the story is told through their conversations, especially when audio logs from the ship are recovered. Tools such as a cutting arc, undersea flares, and a crowbar are essential for accessing sealed areas, while a deep-sea camera aids in documenting findings. This is pretty much all the gear you have, and although using the cutting arc to remove rust on doors, and plying cabinets open with the crowbar gets a little repetitive (much like the gameplay mechanics in the base game), it's still a fun experience. Even more so when cutting open a door causes the entire wreckage to groan like a steel catacomb, and I had to pause every time out of fear of being crushed by falling debris. Thankfully, the game doesn't require you to swim the entire time. While constant swimming might've heightened the tension for anyone with thalassophobia or claustrophobia, the story occasionally gives you a break by letting you explore the wreckage on foot when you find an air pocket. These moments put you back in the familiar boots of the base game's protagonist, Caz, who navigated the dark corridors in eerie silence. This time, though, Mhairi is searching for the ship's main audio log, which holds crucial clues about what really happened. During these moments you have to detach the umbilical cord, cutting any type of communication with your team. It's tense stuff. Horror is my favorite genre, and that's one reason I loved Still Wakes the Deep so much. It felt like 'The Thing' meets 'Dead Space,' with a bit of 'Callisto Protocol' thrown in, and it stood out as something genuinely unique in a crowded horror market. Hence my disappointment when Siren's Rest didn't manage to scare me. Don't get me wrong, Siren's Rest has horror elements: you explore decaying rooms with only a flashlight, stumble across eerie remains, and dive deeper into the wreckage knowing something's waiting. But that's really all there is, and the 'true' horror doesn't kick in until the last twenty minutes of gameplay. Even then, it feels forced. The 'true' horror doesn't kick in until the last twenty minutes of gameplay. Even then, it feels forced. Still Wakes the Deep was terrifying because we had no idea what the threat was, or how we could possibly escape the rig. You were essentially helpless — running, hiding, and trying to survive while the creature's grotesque groans echoed through tight corridors. But in Siren's Rest, you're fully submerged, which means there's far less reliance on sound. It's mostly visual now, and while the visuals are impressive, they're just not enough to make this feel like a real horror experience. Siren's Rest is a genuinely intriguing DLC, and I still had a good time with it. But I can't help feeling that this particular story comes off as unnecessary. While it's great finding clues and exploring a wreckage that's practically falling apart, the element of mystery feels dulled, because we already know what happened. There's not all that much to uncover. The one narrative thread that does make sense is the protagonist's motive, but that's revealed later on, meaning I can't get into it here without spoiling anything. Instead, I feel like this DLC could've still taken the diving concept but create a new story not related to the events of the Beira D. Maybe a group of divers explore another random wreckage in a completely different location, only to uncover the mysterious, otherworldly entity, very much still thriving at the bottom of the North Sea. That would've allowed the story to expand the universe without relying on a tale that already had a strong conclusion. That said, I can't deny that Siren's Rest is a fun experience with a cool concept. It only took me around two hours to complete, so it's perfect for a one-sitting session on a quiet evening. Despite its lack of scares and its questionable necessity, Siren's Rest doesn't forget the soul of the base game, and for anyone who endured the chaos of the Beira D, it still offers something worth diving into.
Forbes
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
2024's Best Horror Game ‘Still Wakes The Deep' Gets Scarier DLC
Still Wakes the Deep's follow-up, Siren's Rest, is landing on June 18. Just when you thought you were out of the water, The Chinese Room pulls you back in. Out of nowhere, the indie developer has announced and will soon release Still Wakes the Deep's DLC expansion, Siren's Rest. Still Wakes the Deep has been revived in a way that only makes the whole experience more claustrophobic and horrific, playing on its mantra of finding every single possible way to sink itself under your skin — this time, you get to relive the hellscape of the Beira D oil platform underwater. Set in 1986, 10 years after the events of Still Wakes the Deep, Siren's Rest places you in the role of sole explorer Mhairi as she hops into a diving bell in the middle of the North Sea to explore the remains of the ill-fated drilling rig. Armed with only a camera, cutting torch, and crowbar, she surveys the wreckage both underwater and in the few remaining air pockets, hoping to learn what happened to the crew — but naturally, not everything is as dead as presumed. Still Wakes the Deep, one of the top-three best indie games of 2024, was the deserved winner of three BAFTA Games Awards (second only to Astro Bot with five), thanks in part to its cast — two of its awards were for the ceremony's only both performer awards, namely lead role (Alec Newman as Cameron 'Caz' McCleary) and supporting role (Karen Dunbar as Finlay). As I said in my original review, it's a masterpiece of game acting, and to keep that spirit alive, this DLC sequel has enlisted top-tier talent to play on its biggest strength. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Siren's Rest, written by Sagar Beroshi of Helldivers 2 fame, introduces Lois Chimimba (Atomfall, Shetland, Doctor Who) as Mhairi, alongside Lorn Macdonald (Bridgerton, The Lazarus Project) and veteran voice artist David Menkin (Final Fantasy XVI, Valorant), once again overseen by SWTD's lead voice director Kate Saxon. This one's had a bad time of it. For its little faults, 'Still Wakes the Deep' was probably the best ... More horror game of last year. If you've still not played it, you're missing out on a unique experience that finds multiple ways to freak you out, especially as you're an everyman character with no weaponry. Still, you might need subtitles if you're an American (or even southern British TBH; I was luckily born and raised not far from the Scottish border). It plays to better side of The Chinese Room's unpredictable back catalog ('Dear Esther'? Amazing! 'Little Orpheous'? Nah.) I've never felt more unsafe in a believable and carefully curated environment. Take a punt on it - in "How Long To Beat" terms, think of it as 'Avengers: Infinity War' and 'Endgame' put together, but it's all set on an oil rig in the 1970s and you gradually watch your fellow crew members turn into the worst monsters possible. The trailer and screenshots of Siren's Rest point to plenty of 'if you know, you know' moments — undoubtedly encouraging a fresh playthrough for existing fans of Still Wakes the Deep like me — but it also unlocks yet another reason for SWTD virgins to punish themselves with mid-70s, Scottish-themed sadness, despair, and body horror. I've always been a poltroon when it comes to horror games, but I managed to complete this one with only light degrees of discomfort, and I've recommended it to everyone I know; I've even bought it as a birthday present for three people. It's not exactly the most positive experience to reward becoming another year older, but whatever. Siren's Rest lands on June 18 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. It takes about 1.5 to two hours to complete, and it costs $12.99 — well worth the money, if past experiences are to be believed. Meanwhile, if Still Wakes the Deep isn't your cup of tea, 2024's fellow, fear-filled classic Crow Country was a close second for the genre, and it's a near-perfect tribute to fifth-gen survival horror. It's also a lot less likely to force you to powerwash your trousers and/or seat of choice after playing.
