Highlights
- Still Wakes the Deep, a survival-horror game, will launch on Xbox Game Pass in 2024 and is developed by The Chinese Room.
- Xbox recently showcased new gameplay footage of Still Wakes the Deep, featuring tense first-person sequences in claustrophobic areas.
- Despite a crowded release calendar in early 2024, Still Wakes the Deep could stand out as a quality counter-programming option for horror gamers with its unique setting and realistic graphics.
Xbox gave fans a new look at Still Wakes the Deep, a unique new survival horror game launching day one on Game Pass in 2024. The upcoming Unreal Engine 5 horror title takes inspiration from atmospheric genre movies and is being developed by The Chinese Room, a smaller studio behind adventure games such as Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
Still Wakes the Deep was confirmed to be a Game Pass game when fans got a brief look at the creepy title at the summer's Xbox Showcase. The announcement trailer showed off images of the oil rig setting and several tense shots to establish the tone. The most recent look at the game, however, shines a light on the gameplay and one of the map's more claustrophobic areas.
Xbox showed off new footage of Still Wakes the Deep in its recent Partner Preview. The brief trailer features a tense, first-person gameplay sequence of the player navigating through tight spaces above and underwater all while avoiding an unseen horror. The trailer concluded with a title screen confirming the game's early 2024 launch window on Xbox Game Pass.
Still Wakes the Deep's announcement trailer was buried under 20 other Game Pass titles confirmed at the Xbox Showcase, but the indie horror title got a chance to shine a bit more during the company's roughly 30-minute Partner Preview presentation. In fact, outside of Alan Wake 2, which closed out the stream, Still Wakes the Deep was the only other game in town for survival-horror fans.
As has been the case the past few years, the early 2024 video game release calendar looks pretty crowded. Anticipated titles such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Tekken 8, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Persona 4 Reload, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are all scheduled to release in the year's first two months. That said, Still Wakes the Deep could slide in alongside those major AAA titles as quality counter-programming for horror gamers during those months, or it could even launch a little afterward when things potentially slow down a bit.
With its various inspirations as well as its unique setting, Still Wakes the Deep hopes to be a dark horse for Xbox in 2024. The game has several things going for it, not the least of which is its realistic graphics crafted in Unreal Engine 5. Match that with some series Alien: Isolation vibes, and gamers have themselves a potentially compelling horror title to look out for in the early months of next year.
Still Wakes the Deep is slated to release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in early 2024.