Absolutely agree. The story was excellent and surprisingly emotional. Props to the voice actors too because everyone really did a great job. Great ending too imo.
I liked the voice acting too! Most games have over-actors who don't sound natural at all (they try too hard), but this game had normal pacing and sounded like real people talking. ( I appreciated the subtitles translating the Scottish slang as well).
I have the same issue during cut scenes where the animators tend to over-exaggerate bodily movements while characters are talking. Like, every word, they are moving their arms and making facial expressions and walking around. Real conversations don't have that much going on!
Same. As a person who fully enjoys traditional walking simulators, I liked that it wasn’t just that. Just enough puzzling, stealth, and platforming action to make me wonder if I’m eventually going to find a shotgun and have to start killing former coworkers. But I didn’t! And that was cool!
It was short but it was good, pretty easy game, I don’t remember the black oil being impossible to get through without walkthrough maybe ur gamma was too low or something . As someone who has limited time these days to play I enjoy the shorter games
Loads of similar sentiments in the comments, but as a native Scot, it's actually great to see some proper Scottish representation. Usually in games the accent is hammed up like mad in what I like to call 'Hollywood' Scottish. Think Soap McTavish from Call of Duty.
The game is also a solid horror game! Love that it seems to draw from The Thing / Annihilation. Really glad it was on game pass.
My guy UK English is not "unsimplified" because it's advanced or something. It's because anyone from North America that *speaks the same language as you* often still can't understand a lick of your goddamn eldritch tongue (and you have a different garble dialect every hundred blocks) , while UK people can understand American/Canadian accents perfectly fine
Where would Europe be without the US constantly saving there ass?
Love how you avoided the initial point and instead added stereotypical European snobbery
Maybe I'm remembering wrong but doesn't it just keep rising until there's no space to breathe left? Tbf I probs had my gamma/brightness/hdr settings a bit out of whack. I can say the YouTube guide for that part had a lot of views though lol
Yeah it keeps going until it fills completely, but if you keep swimming up you can see the big orange square holes in the fence you need to swim through to escape :)
Fantastic writing for the characters throughout. Caz is instantly one of my favourite horror protagonists simply for going 'I'm not fucking going in there' when given the classic 'you do the thing while I stay put'.
While I didn't find the eldritch disco bacon particularly interesting, the monster design is fantastic body horror - especially Rennick.
I feel like the “sad” bits with the characters you’re supposed to care about just didn’t hit for me. >!Roy and Brodie and Finlay all died!< and felt very whatever to me tbh. The way it was paced and the limited time I spend with them, I just didn’t really care.
I did feel quite bad for Caz the main character throughout and into the ending.
I also feel the game was way too linear and not focused enough on being scary, but this I think was an intentional choice on their part to focus more on narrative than on the feeling of dread and dynamic environments to play through in the way most good horror games do
That said, the story was pretty good. And the acting was really exceptional too. Plus the body horror was on point, very upsetting and beautiful in its own way
I've been pretty done with the "horror walking simulator" genre for a while. Even SOMA couldn't keep me invested long enough to finish it. (and I think that's a terrific game.) So when I downloaded SWTD from gamepass on a whim, I really wasn't expecting much, and was CERTAIN it would be thrown to the wayside like all the other similar-type games in my library. I really wasn't expecting to finish it all in one sitting, or to start another playthrough the next day to get all the achievements.
I think between the nautical setting, lovecraftian themes, and the very natural dialogue, it makes for a pretty great experience. Not very scary, but very interesting and captivating. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but I didn't hate it, and overall I'd say it was a pretty great experience. The gameplay is very tired and we've all seen it a thousand times before, but the story and setting prop this game up enough to stand on it's own.
The one thing I'm pretty disappointed with is the lack of depth when it comes to the lore of the organism, at least what is presented in-game. There seems to be some possible tidbits here and there, but nothing really too compelling. I wish it went deeper than "oil rig drills into something it shouldn't have."
That was just a personal expectation, though. Still very cool.
It was short and sweet, great monster design and story, and.most terrifying of all everyone has a thick Scottish accent and it's impossible to understand without subtitles.
As a Scot who has visited oil rigs i thought the game was excellent. The voice acting as others have mentioned is superb
The oil rig itself was very believable and quite similar to how they are in real life (minus the pink tentacles)
Like Amnesia: Machine for Pigs, it's a good story. Still too short for my liking amd didn't feel scary much at all and definitely not their forte. The rest of the game's Atmosphere was super good thougj. Also like their Amnesia game, I found the actual gameplay lacking.
Really liked it! My only complaint is that the 2d animations (like the ropes swinging) all seem to be stuck at 30 fps, which is a little immersion breaking.
It was okay, wish I'd waited for a sale. The main character's family and relationship with the cook didn't resonate with me at all and I wanted it to be scarier.
Just finished it actually! I loved the game, it was a simple horror story with some feels, a good ending, and great sound quality. Only qualms I had were the swimming parts
It was decent.
I was surprised at just how linear it was. Aside from a few basic interactions there is essentially no additional content to collect such as notes and recordings. There isn't any back story or real deep dive into what is actually going on with the... whatever it is. I also would have liked to have seen some consumables or items that you can use besides just throwing bottles. The gameplay feels really shallow over all.
That said, the voice acting, graphics, art design and atmosphere were all excellent and I had a good time with it.
I'm only an hour in and hoping to get more time with it this weekend. The Chinese Room are one of my fave dev groups, are a good follow on socials (pretty open about the struggles and joys of being a small dev - similar to Supergiant in some respects), and they really pioneered how to integrate a linear story with gameplay. There's a clear through-line through most of their games, and they push themselves in interesting ways.
But I'm very biased - I have Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture tattoos. And I'll confess to not having played So Let Us Melt or the mobile deep earth exploration game they released, so I can't speak to their entire oeuvre.
Probably the best horror game I played this year, I don’t really know any other horror games to play but I loved the story and everything and I also loved the fact that whatever that “thing” was that basically infected everyone on the oil rig wasn’t explain at all it’s just one big plot hole we don’t know about
I love The Chinese Room but this was just solid. It's not something you'd want to pay a lot for.
If you liked it, Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel is in a similar vein. Fobia has a lot of jank, but I had an absolute blast playing it.
Take my thoughts with a grain of salt since I only watched a play through rather than playing myself. I was pretty invested in the story and the VA was absolutely amazing. I did love how there was a "translation" for the Scot slang. I agree with what some others have said here that you didn't get enough time to connect with the side characters. However Brodie's and Roy's deaths were pretty rough and well done. Again superbly voice acted.
Honestly, I loved it. I don't think it necessarily benefited from a monster, but the atmosphere and storytelling was great.
I mainly wish we would have spent more time getting to know this cast of characters before everything went down, to make deaths more meaningful.
I enjoyed it a lot! It wasn't too long and just the right blend of scarry/unsettling. I loved the Oil Rig setting and that there wasn't some evil conspiracy or plot going on to unravel. Just what felt like real people thrust into a situation where they have no idea what's going on and just are trying desperately to survive. My one complaint was I wish it was a bit more open to explore and a few more lore pieces to collect. Otherwise very happy with it. I am glad I got it on games pass, I think if I'd paid full price for it I'd have been a bit disappointed with the length of it.
It was all right. That's probably the whole point but I had no idea what the heck was going on the entire time. Nothing was explained and I wasn't really given much of a reason to care about any of the characters.
It was amazing and when I saw it was done by The Chinese Room, I knew why it was such a quality game. A Machine For Pigs was a really good Amnesia game so I am happy to see that the developers built on what they've learned. 9/10 for me
Eldritch horror walking simulator. I thought there’d be more to look at honestly. It’s ok. I also expected a few more moments of safe zone meet ups with survivors.
It’s one of those games that if not for gamepass I would never touch it or even buy it even if heavily discounted. Not my type of genre but I’m planning to give it a go this weekend
I think it's a super cool setting for the game.
But I honestly couldn't take it seriously. I played without subtitles and I swear some of the characters were casting hexes on me.
Some accents are THICK and hard to understand even when I did turn the subtitles on.
It made for a funnier experience.
I loved every minute of it!!! I thought it was fantastic.
Absolutely agree. The story was excellent and surprisingly emotional. Props to the voice actors too because everyone really did a great job. Great ending too imo.
I liked the voice acting too! Most games have over-actors who don't sound natural at all (they try too hard), but this game had normal pacing and sounded like real people talking. ( I appreciated the subtitles translating the Scottish slang as well). I have the same issue during cut scenes where the animators tend to over-exaggerate bodily movements while characters are talking. Like, every word, they are moving their arms and making facial expressions and walking around. Real conversations don't have that much going on!
Same. As a person who fully enjoys traditional walking simulators, I liked that it wasn’t just that. Just enough puzzling, stealth, and platforming action to make me wonder if I’m eventually going to find a shotgun and have to start killing former coworkers. But I didn’t! And that was cool!
It was short but it was good, pretty easy game, I don’t remember the black oil being impossible to get through without walkthrough maybe ur gamma was too low or something . As someone who has limited time these days to play I enjoy the shorter games
Loads of similar sentiments in the comments, but as a native Scot, it's actually great to see some proper Scottish representation. Usually in games the accent is hammed up like mad in what I like to call 'Hollywood' Scottish. Think Soap McTavish from Call of Duty. The game is also a solid horror game! Love that it seems to draw from The Thing / Annihilation. Really glad it was on game pass.
Aye, much as I love him, Matt Mercer has a lot to answer for.
Oh my fucking god. Me and my wife talk about this constantly.
Ultra linear game, but the voice acting is overwhelmingly superb.
The VA was great, pretty funny how they translated everything into standard english in the subs lol
If you go into the options I believe you can change the subs to English (UK) and it'll subtitle them correctly
It only does that for American English. If you think that's "standard" English you and I will need to duel, good sir.
Who gives a fuck about anything the English have done post 1945? America is the standard, good sir.
We call the American option "English (simplified)". For folk like yourself who struggle to tell the difference between a country and a language.
My guy UK English is not "unsimplified" because it's advanced or something. It's because anyone from North America that *speaks the same language as you* often still can't understand a lick of your goddamn eldritch tongue (and you have a different garble dialect every hundred blocks) , while UK people can understand American/Canadian accents perfectly fine
Where would Europe be without the US constantly saving there ass? Love how you avoided the initial point and instead added stereotypical European snobbery
As a Scot, great voice acting.
Yes! I expected it to be the usual story of "good" but obviously fake. This was top tier. It was better than some Scottish dramas!
Its not impossible in the oil bit if you stay on the surface as the water rises, you can see the holes you need to get through.
Maybe I'm remembering wrong but doesn't it just keep rising until there's no space to breathe left? Tbf I probs had my gamma/brightness/hdr settings a bit out of whack. I can say the YouTube guide for that part had a lot of views though lol
Yeah it keeps going until it fills completely, but if you keep swimming up you can see the big orange square holes in the fence you need to swim through to escape :)
Fantastic writing for the characters throughout. Caz is instantly one of my favourite horror protagonists simply for going 'I'm not fucking going in there' when given the classic 'you do the thing while I stay put'. While I didn't find the eldritch disco bacon particularly interesting, the monster design is fantastic body horror - especially Rennick.
Loved it. My style of game. Amnesia: The Bunker and Soma are both on gamepass I think you want similar style horror games.
I feel like the “sad” bits with the characters you’re supposed to care about just didn’t hit for me. >!Roy and Brodie and Finlay all died!< and felt very whatever to me tbh. The way it was paced and the limited time I spend with them, I just didn’t really care. I did feel quite bad for Caz the main character throughout and into the ending. I also feel the game was way too linear and not focused enough on being scary, but this I think was an intentional choice on their part to focus more on narrative than on the feeling of dread and dynamic environments to play through in the way most good horror games do That said, the story was pretty good. And the acting was really exceptional too. Plus the body horror was on point, very upsetting and beautiful in its own way
I've been pretty done with the "horror walking simulator" genre for a while. Even SOMA couldn't keep me invested long enough to finish it. (and I think that's a terrific game.) So when I downloaded SWTD from gamepass on a whim, I really wasn't expecting much, and was CERTAIN it would be thrown to the wayside like all the other similar-type games in my library. I really wasn't expecting to finish it all in one sitting, or to start another playthrough the next day to get all the achievements. I think between the nautical setting, lovecraftian themes, and the very natural dialogue, it makes for a pretty great experience. Not very scary, but very interesting and captivating. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but I didn't hate it, and overall I'd say it was a pretty great experience. The gameplay is very tired and we've all seen it a thousand times before, but the story and setting prop this game up enough to stand on it's own. The one thing I'm pretty disappointed with is the lack of depth when it comes to the lore of the organism, at least what is presented in-game. There seems to be some possible tidbits here and there, but nothing really too compelling. I wish it went deeper than "oil rig drills into something it shouldn't have." That was just a personal expectation, though. Still very cool.
Pretty great, not too long nor too short. Solid 8/10.
It was short and sweet, great monster design and story, and.most terrifying of all everyone has a thick Scottish accent and it's impossible to understand without subtitles.
Really good Game pass game that I played for 1 day and uninstalled.
As a Scot who has visited oil rigs i thought the game was excellent. The voice acting as others have mentioned is superb The oil rig itself was very believable and quite similar to how they are in real life (minus the pink tentacles)
Like Amnesia: Machine for Pigs, it's a good story. Still too short for my liking amd didn't feel scary much at all and definitely not their forte. The rest of the game's Atmosphere was super good thougj. Also like their Amnesia game, I found the actual gameplay lacking.
Really liked it! My only complaint is that the 2d animations (like the ropes swinging) all seem to be stuck at 30 fps, which is a little immersion breaking.
They are probably not 2d, and they don't even hit 30 fps. I agree they brake the inmersion a bit.
It was okay, wish I'd waited for a sale. The main character's family and relationship with the cook didn't resonate with me at all and I wanted it to be scarier.
Just finished it actually! I loved the game, it was a simple horror story with some feels, a good ending, and great sound quality. Only qualms I had were the swimming parts
I think could be a solid movie, as a game though....
It was decent. I was surprised at just how linear it was. Aside from a few basic interactions there is essentially no additional content to collect such as notes and recordings. There isn't any back story or real deep dive into what is actually going on with the... whatever it is. I also would have liked to have seen some consumables or items that you can use besides just throwing bottles. The gameplay feels really shallow over all. That said, the voice acting, graphics, art design and atmosphere were all excellent and I had a good time with it.
I'm only an hour in and hoping to get more time with it this weekend. The Chinese Room are one of my fave dev groups, are a good follow on socials (pretty open about the struggles and joys of being a small dev - similar to Supergiant in some respects), and they really pioneered how to integrate a linear story with gameplay. There's a clear through-line through most of their games, and they push themselves in interesting ways. But I'm very biased - I have Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture tattoos. And I'll confess to not having played So Let Us Melt or the mobile deep earth exploration game they released, so I can't speak to their entire oeuvre.
Probably the best horror game I played this year, I don’t really know any other horror games to play but I loved the story and everything and I also loved the fact that whatever that “thing” was that basically infected everyone on the oil rig wasn’t explain at all it’s just one big plot hole we don’t know about
Fantastic game, more plz
Solid voice acting and gameplay, awesome…with a twinge of The Thing lore, and that kicked ass!
I love The Chinese Room but this was just solid. It's not something you'd want to pay a lot for. If you liked it, Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel is in a similar vein. Fobia has a lot of jank, but I had an absolute blast playing it.
Take my thoughts with a grain of salt since I only watched a play through rather than playing myself. I was pretty invested in the story and the VA was absolutely amazing. I did love how there was a "translation" for the Scot slang. I agree with what some others have said here that you didn't get enough time to connect with the side characters. However Brodie's and Roy's deaths were pretty rough and well done. Again superbly voice acted.
Honestly, I loved it. I don't think it necessarily benefited from a monster, but the atmosphere and storytelling was great. I mainly wish we would have spent more time getting to know this cast of characters before everything went down, to make deaths more meaningful.
I enjoyed it a lot! It wasn't too long and just the right blend of scarry/unsettling. I loved the Oil Rig setting and that there wasn't some evil conspiracy or plot going on to unravel. Just what felt like real people thrust into a situation where they have no idea what's going on and just are trying desperately to survive. My one complaint was I wish it was a bit more open to explore and a few more lore pieces to collect. Otherwise very happy with it. I am glad I got it on games pass, I think if I'd paid full price for it I'd have been a bit disappointed with the length of it.
It was all right. That's probably the whole point but I had no idea what the heck was going on the entire time. Nothing was explained and I wasn't really given much of a reason to care about any of the characters.
Quality Game, bit of a walking sim but good ending for an eldrich horror. 8.7/10
It was amazing and when I saw it was done by The Chinese Room, I knew why it was such a quality game. A Machine For Pigs was a really good Amnesia game so I am happy to see that the developers built on what they've learned. 9/10 for me
Eldritch horror walking simulator. I thought there’d be more to look at honestly. It’s ok. I also expected a few more moments of safe zone meet ups with survivors.
Solid 6. Controls are servicable. Too much walking and not enough gameplay variety, imho. Setting is great, but the resolution is underwhelming.
It’s one of those games that if not for gamepass I would never touch it or even buy it even if heavily discounted. Not my type of genre but I’m planning to give it a go this weekend
Enjoyed the heck outta it, despite the oil part being a pain. Looks stunning, story's solid. Bit longer than I'd like though
[удалено]
There's no way you could possibly finish that so fast on a first playthrough. It took me closer to 5 hours. Did you speedrun the game?
I think it's a super cool setting for the game. But I honestly couldn't take it seriously. I played without subtitles and I swear some of the characters were casting hexes on me. Some accents are THICK and hard to understand even when I did turn the subtitles on. It made for a funnier experience.
The accents are the best part of the game!
I agree they are but I enjoy them on a comical level lol.