Still Wakes The Deep: Siren’s Rest Review
There’s something profoundly unsettling about descending into darkness with only the creak of your own equipment for company. That’s the sensation that “Siren’s Rest” captures perfectly, an expansion that doesn’t scream for attention but rather whispers ominously through static-filled comms and rusted corridors. As a follow-up to “Still Wakes the Deep,” this DLC trades the chaotic horror of the main game for something slower, colder, and even more claustrophobic. Set in 1986, a full decade after the original events, you take on the role of Mhairi, a saturation diver sent to investigate the sunken remains of the Beira D oil rig. It’s a grim expedition, not just because of the physical dangers, but because of what’s waiting in the stillness below. The rig isn’t just a wreck; it’s a monument to something forgotten, and maybe something that should have stayed that way.
This isn’t the kind of horror that throws monsters at you every few minutes. Instead, “Siren’s Rest” is steeped in tension, the kind that builds with every hiss of your oxygen line and every faint groan of shifting steel. The game knows how to weaponize silence, and it uses it well. The deep-sea setting is beautifully oppressive, making even the smallest movement feel monumental. Swimming through the tilted, corroded chambers of the rig gave me a real sense of disorientation, especially as memories and hallucinations started to blur together. The Chinese Room leans hard into atmosphere here, and the tools you’re given reinforce the deliberate pacing. A cutting arc lets you slice open blocked passages, flares provide brief moments of clarity in ink-black rooms, and your camera becomes both a narrative device and a way to make the experience feel disturbingly procedural. You’re not just looking for clues; you’re cataloging the dead. That act alone gave me pause more than once.
The dynamic between Mhairi, her dive partner, and the surface support team is surprisingly effective, especially considering you never see them. Communication feels fragile and frayed, and the slight distortion in their voices sells the retro-futuristic tone brilliantly. There’s a sadness undercutting most of these exchanges, professionalism masking anxiety, which adds to the weight of the dive. While the original game leaned into a survival-horror structure with clear threats and a frantic pace, “Siren’s Rest” dials that back in favor of slow-burn psychological horror. Most of your time is spent exploring, listening to audio logs, piecing together what happened in 1975, and slowly realizing that something else may still be watching. The final act does introduce a more immediate threat, but it’s fleeting, more of a capstone than a climax. If you’re expecting a lengthy or action-packed experience, this DLC probably won’t deliver on that front. But what it does offer is a haunting, beautifully restrained narrative about memory, guilt, and obsession. It’s about the things we can’t let go of, and the places we shouldn’t return to. And it’s all rendered with that signature Chinese Room melancholy, quietly poetic, deeply unnerving.
At only a few hours long, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and while I would’ve appreciated more variety in the gameplay beyond the occasional mechanical puzzle or navigation challenge, I found myself drawn into its eerie stillness. The pacing works if you’re in the mood for something meditative, and the underwater environments are convincing enough to make you forget you’re sitting on dry land. For anyone with even a hint of thalassophobia, this is going to hit in all the wrong (or right?) ways. At thirteen bucks, I think “Siren’s Rest” is an easy recommendation for fans of the original. It doesn’t try to reinvent what came before but rather extends it, like a ghost story still echoing ten years later. It’s more subdued, more internal, and perhaps less thrilling than the base game, but no less memorable. If the North Sea has more secrets to share, I’ll be the first to dive back in.
7.5/10
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Related: Reviews by Nick Navarro
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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