#developerama

A few weeks back, four developers from The Chinese Room answered your questions over on Reddit. This blog is a compilation of the brilliant questions and deep answers provided. Be warned, it’s a long one! Please note that these answers will contain spoilers for both Still Wakes the Deep and Still Wakes the Deep: Siren’s Rest.

The four developers who took part were:

Principal Narrative Designer Sagar Beroshi

Principal Game Designer Jade Jacson

Lead Sound Designer Francesco Del Pia

Lead Environment Artist Iain Gillespie

Question from Gorvar1: "How do you feel about the community calling the organism The Shape?"

A - Jade: "I really love it. We have another name for it in the office, but I prefer the one the community came up with as it's more neutral and fits it better."

Question from Carbine: "What inspired the setting and story of Still Wakes the Deep?" and follow-up from V-companey: "What if John Carpenter went mad filming a documentary on an oil rig?"

A - Jade and Sagar: "Spot on, this was definitely our goal!"

Question from HoneyGumSD: "What happened to the Greatest character ever conceived, Davros. It’s a joke in the community that he’s alive, but how’d he die (did he NOT die?!) This is very urgent!"

A - Jade: "You're going to be disappointed, but we know about this discourse and love it, so we're kind of tempted to not answer this question 😁"

A - Sagar: "This is indeed an incredibly important question. It's time we answered it definitively.

...

...

...

😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁"

Questions from BillyJayGaming - "Did the monster in Siren’s Rest survive the Beira D explosion, and if so, who was it?"

A - Sagar: "I think it's so interesting that so many of you believe that Mhairi encounters a single, defined organism that is human-sized and that is identical to whatever may or may not have been encountered in the base game... Very interesting indeed…

Let's consider what we all presumably know about how it operates. It has physical absorption capabilities. It has some sort of latent psychic induction capabilities. It seems to absorb people's body and mind. And it comes from the deep.

Is that what Mhairi interacts with? And if so, is that exactly and precisely just an amalgamation of the workers from the Beira D? If such an entity exists, would there have been nothing else it ever absorbed, ever in its history? Hmm…"

Q - "In the base game, we never see Raffs get out of the diving bell, and Brodie never mentions it, but we see the diving bell near the end of the game with a flesh mass coming out of it. How did Brodie survive if he was there, or did he run away before finding out what was wrong with Raffs?"

A - Sagar: "Gods, poor Raffs... The kid wasn't alright.

As for what Brodie saw... Brodie and Finlay are on a whole separate journey from Caz that we never see. They aren't static NPCs... they're BUSY during the events of Still Wakes the Deep, trying to keep things (literally) afloat, just like Caz. Brodie was on the move. Whether he managed to break through and find what happened to his junior partner... I won't confirm here."

Question from No_Volume_8345: "Are you guys currently working on a sequel for the game? And would you consider this game your biggest and/or best since A Machine for Pigs?"

A - Sagar: "We can't comment on any future productions, and it's best we leave evaluations to all of you in the community.

However, just for myself: I only joined the team after Still Wakes the Deep was mostly made, and so I came as a fan (just like many of you!). And purely as a fan, I find Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs very inspiring. I think it's a much subtler and more interesting game than it's sometimes remembered as. That ending monologue still haunts my dreams."

Question from AccomplishedAerie333 - "When did you start working on Siren's Rest?"

A - Sagar: "Last year, as the production of Still Wakes the Deep was nearing completion. It's been a tight development cycle for this project. We wanted to give the community Siren's Rest a year to the day after the main game, and we're proud to have done it."

A - Jade: "I worked on Still Wakes the Deep for almost 2.5 years, then I personally started to work on Siren's Rest a week after the release of Still Wakes the Deep, I think, as we were still finishing some free updates for the base game."

Question from Snailboi666 - "After playing Still Wakes the Deep, it sent me on a spiral of looking into oil rigs and how they work, what life was like living on them, etc. It would be cool if, maybe a decade later, we get another company that comes out near the area to try and possibly siphon up the oil that remained, and we can see how the monster has evolved over time.

The game is absolutely amazing. I haven't played Siren’s Rest yet, but will soon!"

A - Sagar: "I definitely agree on the line of research you did. Oil rigs are absolutely fascinating places. It's crazy that these exist dotted all over the world, and people build their entire careers on them. I'm so glad you found this authentic: that's what we were really hoping to achieve.

When you get around to playing the DLC, we felt the same way about saturation diving. A completely bonkers career that is not very well known by the general public. Full of people with tremendous technical skill and personal courage.

What other games do you think give a similar vibe? We'd love to add more to our to-play list."

Questions from Lo-Honko (Zeon) - "A specific question for Iain Gillespie or Jade Jacson- I've found a few unused maps inside the game files with pontoon legs covered in ribbons. Was the player meant to travel through one of the legs at an earlier point? Was it already planned from the start to have all goop calcified, or have some "living" parts remain?"

A - Jade: "I'm always amazed at how fast you guys can manage to get into the files so quickly! 

Yeah we played with the idea of having to go through the pontoon leg at the very end of that scene, "something" was supposed to pull you below but it wasn't working well with the feelings we wanted the player to feel for that time so we decided that the focus on the door felt like a better moment and transitioned nicely to the next scenes. 

I won't talk too much about the calcified goop/coral. I think it's better to leave some mystery to it."

Q - "Is Rob related to anyone from the Beira D Crew? Or is he a close friend to Mhairi?"

A - Sagar: "This, I can clearly confirm: no. Rob is actually in some sense Mhairi's subordinate, but things don't work like office politics down under the sea. Hans is deeply experienced and networked in the commercial diving community in the North Sea, and he linked up to sponsor Mhairi's efforts early. Hans was aware of a young, very reliable saturation diver with exactly the type of wreck-diving profile that the expedition needed, so he set up Rob with an interview.

But Mhairi and Rob (and Hans! Can't forget about our elder statesman from Stavanger) became incredibly close in the preparation for this expedition. So, however it started, they certainly were all close friends and colleagues by the time of the dive. Enough that they can be quite harsh with each other without worrying about losing a relationship."

Q - "How are Suze and her kids doing after receiving the news? Did she ever talk to Mhairi when she planned this dive?"

A - Sagar: "I can't say too much about the McLeary family left behind... but I can say that Mhairi was very comprehensive in the course of reaching out to all the families of the fallen. She (Mhairi) spent years of her life managing this charity and getting to know all the people lost. She definitely made a visit to Suze's home, especially seeing as they were both in Glasgow.

How things went in that discussion? I won't say just yet."

Q - "One can find the model named "Infected Scooby" in the base game, stuck to the ceiling. But playing through Siren's Rest, we find Scooby on the ground holding the emergency phone. Was this intentional, or is the infected version someone else?"

A - Sagar: "Names of character models sometimes get swapped around during development, so if you're poking through the assets, that may or may not be a reliable way of figuring out who's who.

What I will say is that it is very intentional that in Siren's Rest, Scooby is found where we find him, near the phone. Is there a discrepancy there? Or is there a clue?"

Q - "In the base game, we have two McLurgs on the Deck. One of them is talking to Bruce, and we wondered if that one would be Fergus? Since they would later venture down into engineering with O'Connor."

A - Sagar: "I'd refer you to my comments above on the naming of character models not always being what you want to rely on.

The one talking to Bruce is Fergus. We hear them together on that first phone call from Caz's perspective. Good deduction.

Now long before the events of Still Wakes the Deep, Alan McLurg was assigned some of the crappiest jobs on the rig. Same as Toby Boyd. They were both pretty surly and preferred their own company, so they made the best of it.

Unexpectedly for them, they got along pretty well and even kept a darkly comic competition going on down in the Mud House. Kept tallies. Whoever got to ten first had to buy a round of drinks for the other guy. McLurg, always grunting and disapproving, seemed like someone you'd not want to spend time with. But he came to like the younger Boyd, and he'd volunteer for tougher jobs when he could, just to give Boyd a break.

He'd never have admitted this to Boyd, though…"

Q - "Does the guy from the vents and mudpits have a name? Who is this person Finlay lends her lighter to?"

A - Sagar: "Yep. Alex Cranstoun is the one in the vents. He'd gotten Finlay's lighter fair and square after everyone got drunk after a darts competition. Finlay doesn't remember what happened that night, and so by the start of the events of Still Wakes the Deep, she thinks she's just misplaced it.

But when disaster strikes, the fecking lighter doesn't even work, and it was all Cranstoun had... He tripped and fell into having one of the worst deaths possible, trapped at the bottom of an unclimbable space. The poor man."

Q - "Could we learn more about Hans?"

A - Sagar: "YES! THANK YOU FOR ASKING. I love grandpa Hans. Hans is in his 60s, and he's a sort of elder statesman of the North Sea. He got his stripes working in the dockyards of Stavanger, Norway, and he was universally loved as a mediator and union man over there. He had a very different set of influences than Trots, for example. He is hugely influenced by his childhood in the Second World War, during which the British navy put mines all around the Norwegian coast (Operation Wilfred), to dissuade a Nazi invasion by sea. Whatever the intentions, Hans developed a profound distaste for the bringing of violence and a lack of regard for human safety to the waters of the North Sea. He used his position to focus on worker safety, which is why -- as he got older and ventured farther and farther into the North Sea to work on commercial projects -- he remained concerned about any oil rig disasters.

The isolation is a prime environment for terrible worker conditions. After the destruction of the Beira D, his sorrow for the people lost directed him quickly to Mhairi, who seemed to be the only person trying to do something about it. He offered his experience and mentorship, and the two of them built a partnership to plan out this expedition."

Q - "We're also curious about the King Brothers, Torkill and Abernathy. Is there any additional lore info on them?"

A - Sagar: "I'll give you a little detail about the King brothers. Hector and Gregory are their names, which are modernised versions of the names of kings of Scotland from the High Middle Ages. Giric mac Dúngail, a king of Alba (or of the Picts) and Eochaid ab Rhun, a king of Strathclyde, were rumoured to be family members who ruled jointly in the 9th century.

Glen Torkill was the inventory manager, and he was a bit officious, perhaps a bit pompous, but altogether meticulous. He never left his inventory rooms, and we find him having "gone down with his ship", so to speak.

Gordon Abernathy... he got trapped down there. And his death is not a good one, as Mhairi remarks."

Q - "How many people worked on the rig on the day of the explosion?"

A - Sagar: "I don't recall off the top of my head, but there are more people than Caz interacts with personally. I believe it's about 30-ish."

Q - "Whom did the Nic mug belong to?"

A - Sagar: "Dominic Clague."

A - Iain: "He was the transport assistant. He has a big age gap with his younger sister, and she made this for him in a pottery class for Christmas. She made sure to package it carefully for him, because she knew that her "Nic" was going to have to spend his first Christmas away from the family, since he offered to let his boss, McNeil, have a break. Dominic treasured that mug."

Q - "One last silly question, what is Addair's full name?"

A - Sagar: "Malcolm Addair."

Question from PollySnuggleBug - "Hi! As a British person who lives quite rurally, something that I've always loved about The Chinese Room and its games has been their settings - whether its Dear Esther's moody Scottish coastline, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture's quaint Shropshire village, or Still Wakes the Deep's North Sea Oil rig, it feels like you're the only studio out there, UK-based or otherwise, who's actually interested in the UK beyond London. It sounds like a small thing, but amongst all the games set in the US or some fantasy land, it's honestly really cool exploring virtual reimaginings of my own back garden, and the fidelity and attention to detail you folks bring to it every single time is impeccable. For me, it all rings true and oozes character in a way not a lot of other games do.

All that being said, are there any settings in particular that you folks are interested in for your next game? Do you think there's more to be seen on the British Isles, or are you interested in moving further afield?"

A - Sagar: "It makes us so happy to see this comment. The UK is such a beautiful, wondrous place, and for some reason, it is common to talk it down in some way. There's really something quite special on these islands, and so many different types of geographies and so many different types of lives that are being lived. London is brilliant too! But it's very often portrayed by people who don't live here either. Though it's just one place amongst many. It's a pillar of our studio to tell grounded, authentic narratives, and a big way we do that is to pick places to tell stories that we can fuel with research and personal knowledge. Anytime you make a game, you're spending years of your life in that world. You have to feel there is enough to interest you to keep you sustained on good and bad days.

There are so many settings in the UK that are ripe for the picking, for both big and small games. And we're not the only ones who think so: loads of other games that explore less well-known British environments, and an increasing number of indie titles as well. As for our future, lots of things change when you're concepting a game, so we don't know for sure right now what might happen next.

What locations do you think would be good to set games? And what types of games would fit in those settings?"

Question from Razzretina - "With the wealth of (amazing) characters on the rig to use as the main draw in Siren's Rest, what prompted you to focus on Brodie and his family in specific? Was that something you had planned for while the main game was still in development, or did it come about as you were building Siren’s Rest?"

A - Jade: "This definitely came after we started to work on Siren’s Rest.

We wanted a character with a strong connection to diving, so it felt very natural to pick Brodie. Plus, Brodie's voice actor, Michael Abubakar, is amazing. I think we all cried the first time we heard his last phone conversation with Caz, so we were all very excited to work with him again."

A - Sagar: "Thank you for your questions!

You could say that Siren's Rest foregrounds the ambience. That sensation of being so deep under the sea that you can't see the surface, the looming shapes in the murk... just the dread and confusion of being in such a space was our main touchstone.

We had a lot of debates on what stories would be best to tell in such a space, and teasing out Mhairi's family's story was where we landed. She offers a really interesting foil to playing as Caz in the base game, because she's so much more prepared, knowledgeable, and directed. So we were able to focus heavily on her as a character, and as Jade has said, it gave us another opportunity to make use of the amazing voice talents of Michael Abubakar."

Question from GFK96 - "How do you hope players feel at the end of the game and the end of the DLC? Were you aiming for more catharsis, fear, empathy, resigned acceptance or something else?"

A - Jade: "Personally, I just hope that you feel something out of it, as there are no good answers since we all react differently to things.

We all had to grieve someone at some point in our life so my hope is that this game helped even just a tiny bit some people letting go of some of that sadness/fear/anger/pain that can sometimes be linked to someone's death. 

But if you choose to hang on well... That's another story!"

Q - "Are there any particular literary or cinematic influences that shaped the tone, narrative, or characters/creatures in the game? It gives off strong The Thing vibes while still maintaining its own unique spin, which I thought was brilliant."

A - Jade: "Yes, definitely! Our original pitch was "The Thing on an oil rig," so you're spot on!

Film

Annihilation (2018)

The Endless (2018)

Hereditary (2018)

Midsommar (2019)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Solaris (1972)

Spring (2014) - Don’t watch the trailer if you want to avoid spoilers!

Suspiria (1977)

The Tenant (1976)

The Thing (1982)

The Wicker Man (1973)

Harbinger Down (2015)

TV

70s

Boys from the Blackstuff (1980)

Doomwatch (1970)

Going Straight (1978)

Life on Mars (2006)

Porridge (1974)

Spyship (1983)

The Sweeney (1974)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)

Oil Strike North (1975)

The Tomorrow People (1973)

Film 70s

Get Carter (1971)

Quatermass & The Pit (1967)

Rigs

State of Happiness (2018)

Books

Jeff Vandermeer: Southern Reach Trilogy, esp Annihilation (Book One)

Ben Smith – Doggerland

Helen Marshall: The Migration

Andrew Michael Hurley – The Loney

Daisy Johnson – Everything Under / Fen 

Naomi Booth – Sealed."

Question from KennedyWrite - "Any secrets in Siren’s Rest you can give a hint on?"

A - Fran: "Not really a secret, but more of a curiosity we can share - at several points in the DLC, you'll hear three distinct beeps; these spell the letter 'U' in Morse code. 'U' stands for 'unmovable', and the signal is played from oil rigs to warn passing ships of their presence, especially under foggy conditions. This means that if you hear that tone, you're probably running into some kind of danger ;)"

Question from Billy - "When creating The Shape, did y’all envision anything like set abilities and limits that it has? Did y’all create it like an actual functioning organism and then build a story around that, or did y’all create story beats and then craft the organism to be able to accomplish them? Do y’all see it more as a parasitic organism or as an eldritch, unknowable, and limitless force of nature? We see it behaving as coral in Siren’s Rest, so I was wondering if that was its original form before being brought up to the rig? If there are some hard-to-notice or unmentioned limits or abilities it has, what are they? I have a huge passion for speculative biology and was wondering what biology y’all had in mind while designing it and making the story. Siren’s Rest was a stellar addition to the main game, and as a diver, I love when the scary parts of diving get touched on by games!"

A - Jade: "It is definitely a bit of a mix of both concerning the set abilities/change during developments. In Still Wakes the Deep, there was things we had written about its abilities that we didn't want to change and we built our level based on these requirements but if we were having any new ideas about story beats or events and we thought they would bring amazing moments we would get together and decide if it was worth it and adapt the rest to make it make sense.

When I joined the team, The Shape was presented to me as something that couldn't be understood. It's larger than everything. Caz or Mhairi are like ants trying to understand the cosmos. I also love how it means something different for everyone."

A - Sagar: "WE LOVE THE SPECULATIVE BIOLOGY TOO! You should see our internal planning docs for this entity and how it may or may not operate. We have a strong sense of its evolution, its biology, its environment, its psyche, and its ecology. The way the stories play out, we're in a specific human being's mind with a very limited understanding of something he or she cannot communicate with or even observe very safely.

Is this one single individual organism? Is it something else? Is there one creature with a single lifespan that endures across both games? What is it we're even seeing?

I have given a few more details elsewhere, but one thing I'll say is that I have seen the community thinking about this in the way cosmic horror is often handled in media: just with a particularly big, particularly scary monster.

But we have in mind something more than that, even though Caz and Mhairi only get to understand little tidbits of detail.

The thing I find particularly interesting is how so much of the community seems to think that what the protagonists actually see is everything there is to see…

Are you sure that our understanding of the order of magnitude is correct?"

Questions from MartianFiLms - "Is there a chance for an anthology of more DLCs speaking towards playing different protagonists or stories in the same universe as Still Wakes the Deep? I'd love to see that continue throughout after Siren's Rest."

A - Sagar: "We love this universe and feel there is a lot to explore here. I'm afraid we can't confirm any future projects at the moment, but I will say that we keep a close eye on how our games are received, what the community thinks, and whether it seems there's more appetite for game stories in this world."

Q - "How does the process for writing a script for a game go for you as far as you can tell for Still Wakes the Deep in particular vs any other mediums like film or series? Does it often change while in development as ideas get scrapped or changed altogether? And do the voice actors sometimes have any input on the writing involved as well? I'm a bit of a passionate storyteller for games and film altogether, so I definitely love to hear this kinda input from you the most."

A - Sagar: "Ooh, this is basically a question about my entire job on the project! It all depends on the nature of the story, and sometimes you don't fully know what structure of a story you want until you figure out what game you want to make (sort of a chicken and egg problem). Siren's Rest, for example, is a fair bit more modular than Still Wakes the Deep is. So Siren's Rest could be written more in chunks, almost like a TTRPG adventure module, while Still Wakes the Deep could lean more into traditional screenplay structure. Though we used both methods on both projects."

Questions from StrangerKara - "Hi! The main thing I'm wondering about is if the crew members who show up at the end of Siren's Rest were chosen for a specific purpose. The main infected are there, but so are some seemingly random characters as well as Finlay. Do they all have anything in common, or were they chosen randomly?"

A - Sagar: "I've seen a number of lists on Reddit and elsewhere that very definitively mark out which characters were absorbed by the supposed entity or not. There's no question that in the course of Still Wakes the Deep, we see some people who still seem (shall we say...) intact, and others less so.

But there's a big gap in time between the end of Still Wakes the Deep and Siren's Rest. What might have happened in the meantime? And how reliable is Mhairi's perspective at the stage of her experience you're referring to?

What do you think? Internally, we have a strong sense of what's happened, but I think it's more interesting to hear what you think. Perhaps I can just say that a certain early Neil Marshall film is a strong influence on Siren's Rest."

Q - "In the base game, Caz comments on Davey Henderson leaving the rig the night before after entering his cabin. It got me curious about that character, and I'm wondering if you had any other information about him?"

A - Sagar: "We have a LOT of thoughts about Henderson. But since you've been thinking about it, I'm curious what you think. What do you think Henderson's experience might have been like?

We did offer a pair of new names in Siren's Rest to reflect a parallel experience to Henderson. These were people we didn't meet in the base game, but that also had this experience of leaving before the disaster. Just imagine what that survivor's guilt might have been like, in the weeks and months as Cadal was pulled forth before inquiry after inquiry, and the faces of your friends and colleagues printed on every newspaper...

Michael McNeil (transport supervisor) and Nicole Hall (senior lawyer) both got out in time. They've got something in common with Henderson."

Questions from MyceliumMuse - "The tone of the DLC seems quite different to the original. It's a lot less Lovecraftian and focuses mainly on atmosphere. Why the stark tone shift?"

A - Sagar: "Very true, the tone is quite distinct.

I talked a bit about this in the answer to Razzretina's question, but it derives from the choice of environment and ambience we're aiming to achieve. The first game is body horror and monster horror, with shadings of cosmic horror.

This game is more exploratory and sombre, leaning more into paranormal horror."

Q - "What is Trots' actual name?"

A - Jade: "I'm so glad you love Trots. He was also one of my favourites. His full name is Iain "Trots" Campbell. I can bring some titbits about him:

Originally, Trots was planned to be the driller on the rig, but this changed. He became the quartermaster. His office is near the laundry.

He’s the Union Rep – hence the nickname (after Trotsky). (This didn't change.)

He loves History.

The crew is the most important thing for him; that's why he fights so much for it. (he doesn't have a lot of family left.)

He’s nosy, has a bit of an OCD, but he’s passionate about things being done properly and not normally aggressive (unless he feels under attack, and he’s quite defensive so this can happen quite a lot).

At the beginning of the game, Trots used to be heard cleaning up the toilet after Raffs, and you could hear him be annoyed at Raffs. (That's why he's in there when we come back from the lifeboat!)"

Question from TheFinchmeister - "What was Dan Pinchbeck’s level of writing involvement with Siren’s Rest? Was Siren’s Rest ever envisioned as an epilogue for Still Wakes The Deep? Is there a metatextual link between the ending of Siren’s Rest and The Chinese Room "letting go" of its founder? Will The Chinese Room do a corporate retreat scuba diving in the North Sea?"

A - Sagar: "This whole universe started in Dan's head, and we are so grateful for his imagination and storytelling powers. Not to mention that he founded the studio itself! He's a person of tremendous skill, and his impact is very much felt in the work we continue to do. But I can confirm that Siren's Rest was a wholly independent production, and that there is certainly no such metatextual link."

A - Jade: "I did a few scuba diving lessons and wanted to bring people from the office with me, but after working on this game, a lot of people were a bit scared to do it for some reason!"

Question from V-Companey101 - "Is there a good idea of what Caz looks like, and were there any other ideas or locations for Siren's Rest?"

A - Iain: "I did see on Reddit the other day that someone had posted a screenshot of the wedding photo. Which, fun fact, are the parents of one of the team.

Caz, however, was left intentionally vague as he's a vessel for you, the player. It's up to you to interpret and imagine him. Plus... there are no working mirrors in the game, or a third-person camera, so that head is there mostly to cast a shadow.

In terms of locations… In hindsight, at least one of the locations that Sagar pitched was bananas. Haha."

A - Sagar: "On your first question, it seems that the community lately has been coming to some fun conclusions about this!

On the second, yeah, we explored very widely at first, but we were really taken with the emotion of the deeps, and what an interesting mirror it poses to the setting of the original game.

We discussed inspirations more in this Xbox Wire article."

Question from BrokenBaron - "What was the original pitch, and what motivated the team to make the DLC? Were there challenges or opportunities that caused the initial plan to shift for DLC? It seems like a great cross between reusing many of the same existing and successful assets/settings while recontextualising it in a story-driven and horror amplifying way that feels distinct from the original experience."

A - Jade: "I think we started to talk about it a few months before the end of Still Wakes the Deep, that it would be great to do an expansion if we could. There were a few ideas floating around (pun not intended!) about different things we could do, and we all pitched a few things.

At the time, I really wished the moment Caz fell into the sea was longer so we could really show how scary it is to fall into these very cold waters where your life expectancy is close to 5 minutes, but it didn’t fit the story beats of that moment. 

It stayed in the back of my mind, so when we started to talk about a possible expansion, I pitched the idea to focus on this fear of thalassophobia/ submechanophobia and people going to the ruins to understand what happened, and people really liked it! We didn't want to do something too similar to the base game, so it felt very exciting.

You would think we're reusing a lot of assets, but we actually had to remake a lot of stuff! But I think we still managed to do a lot in the time we had. Thank you for your comment."

A - Iain: "Yes, when deciding the direction of the DLC, the fact that we could reuse a lot of the assets that we had already created for the base game contributed to my confidence that we could achieve the look with a smaller team. We could build entirely new areas with our existing kit and just make it mucky! Though, as Jade said, we did have to create a lot of new things, as well as alter what we had. A lot of merging, bending and warping went on!"

A -  Sagar: "Concepting for games is a complex, but exhilarating process. We considered loads of options. There wasn't anything that caused a shift: this was conceived from the start as a story-heavy DLC or expansion. The only question was what the central concept would be."

Question from Leviathan2205 - "Were there any specific Scottish influences that played a part in the character design?"

A - Sagar: "Too many to name! We tried consistently to put little hints and nods throughout both the base game and the DLC. We've listed influences elsewhere in this AMA, but our creative director grew up in Glasgow and was instrumental in making sure we stayed as accurate as possible. When it came time to voice recording, we cast from all over Scotland and worked in detail with the performers to make sure lines sounded natural for them. A lot of co-creation there, you might say.

I'm really gratified to hear you feel these characters were authentic to your experience. We really spend a lot of time trying to get this part of it right."

Questions from Icy_Piglet4732 - "I love the design of the monster in Siren’s Rest, what went into the planning, concepts and final design? This is such a unique creature (from design to behaviour), so I'm eager to learn more about it."

A - Sagar: "Hah! We'll have to be a little careful here about the lore. Let me see... I saw a Reddit post recently where someone found out that whatever you encounter in Siren's Rest seems to speak at times with voices. Its actual physical design too shows some things, but not everything about it.

We have a deep sense of fictional biology and even evolutionary history of what our protagonists have interacted with, if indeed it's one and the same. However, because we were either in Caz's or in Mhairi's panicked perspective, they only understood the tiniest portion of what it might actually be. I'll leave things there lore-wise... 

However, we can talk about it artistically. I'm really glad you like the design of it. Our art team went through a careful and specific process to make what you see in Siren's Rest. After all, what you see there is in a VERY different environment than what we saw in the base game. Movement, animation, and even texture are different accordingly.

At least for what Mhairi thinks she sees in the DLC, there's definitely careful movement and hunting patterns in response to detectable sensations, like sound, motion, and heat.

But that's not all of what it might be using. Or even all of what it might be..."

A - Jade: "In the base game, all of them had different perceptions and hunting abilities. I think Muir was almost blind because the transformation changed his eyes the most. The fog also hinders him a lot. 

Rennick can see and hear you very well, obviously. Addair can also see and hear you very well, and hates when you throw things around. Trots is the slowest, I think."

A - Iain: "I will add that the fact that different people heard different things when corrupted by the monster is very much intentional and is a hint at how this entity may operate."

A - Fran: "The antagonist's main way of detecting you is through vision and sound; that's why it groans and becomes aggressive as you light up each flare, and follows their noise after you've thrown them. Mhairi will occasionally say a few lines during the encounter as a reaction to what the antagonist is doing, but always when she's either at a safe distance or in a hiding spot, so that she won't be heard."

Q - "Was Mhairi’s crew hired by the government or hired by Cadel, or were they an individual group sent down to investigate it? If it was the former, did they have some inkling that the rig went down by unnatural means? If it was the latter option, what made them agree to take Mhairi down?"

A - Sagar:  "No, Mhairi herself is the progenitor of this expedition. She runs a charity on behalf of those who lost loved ones on the Beira D, and she worked hard over a decade to fund this single day's saturation dive. It's seriously expensive for a private individual or a charity to manage. So no one urged Mhairi on: she personally wanted to do this -- ostensibly to bring closure to anyone who lost a loved one in this disaster -- but also, of course, for her own search for closure. She even damaged her own relationship with her mother, who couldn't understand why Mhairi turned her whole life into support for this effort.

All that was known was that the Beira D collapsed into the North Sea without a trace, and that somehow no contact (not by radio, not by helicopter, not by lifeboat) ever explained why. It turned into a Bermuda Triangle-style mystery, but most assumed there was a gas blowout, as sometimes happens.

So Mhairi very much prepares for this expedition: it's NOT something you do casually. But she is the passionate force behind it. She found Hans to serve as a mentor and later hired Rob to be a diving partner. She prepared and planned and got her certification and went on down."

Questions from Norriek2179 - "Why did the Shape actively mutate only a handful of the crew? What made Gibbo, Trots, Muir, Rennick, and Addair different from the rest?"

A - Sagar: "The base game has lines that hint at reasons for this, and what led some people to become absorbed and changed, and others to be killed outright. Caz doesn't have all the information necessary to get a full explanation."

Q - "We know Caz and Roy were well acquainted and that Roy got Caz the job on the Beira D, but what exactly was their relationship? Was he just a friend of theirs, or was he related to Suze in some way?"

A - Sagar: "They were great and long-time friends! Enough for Roy to be intimately acquainted with the whole family and have the relationship he does with Caz. Roy wasn't related by blood to Suze, though."

Q - "What happened to the support ship? Did they ever come to investigate after losing radio contact with the Beira D?"

A - Sagar: "The Beira D ultimately collapses without any communication getting back to the mainland, driving the mystery that, ten and a half years later, sends Mhairi to the bottom of the sea."

Q - "Why did it take so long for divers to investigate the wreckage of the Beira D? An oil rig is completely destroyed under mysterious circumstances, and no one checks it out for a decade? Were there political factors involved, or did enough evidence of what happened survive to discourage Cadal from investigating?"

A - Sagar: "After the collapse of the rig, Cadal was immediately hauled before inquiries across Scotland and the UK (not dissimilar from other such disasters). The pressure and loss of reputation, not to mention the financial cost, led Cadal to collapse as a company. Certainly, right after the disaster, Cadal dispatched helicopters from Aberdeen, but they only saw wreckage floating on the sea, with not a soul in sight.

A saturation dive is NOT a casual endeavour (we know... this was an important part of our research). It takes serious funding and planning to make this happen. And Cadal was not in a position to do this when, very shortly after 1975, it went into insolvency.

What was left? It was clear there were no survivors. Everyone assumed there was a gas blowout. But this central question of whether there was more to find stuck in Mhairi's craw. She felt powerfully that those who died weren't put to rest properly. And so she began a decade-long effort to plan to get down there. We join her when, by the age of 31, she's finally starting the most important day of her life."

Question from CoochSushiRoll - "Is the monster in Siren’s Rest Caz?"

A - Sagar: "We will have to leave this to you to interpret... we have an answer as to what this may or may not be, but I'm curious to hear your interpretation.

We thought carefully about what choice, if any, Mhairi ought to have at the end of the story (just as we did about what choice, if any, Caz ought to have at the end of his story). What I can say is: whichever way you pick at the end of Siren's Rest, the abruptness of the ending is masking a number of possibilities for what could happen to Mhairi in the future. Or whether she even has a future as an independent being. "

Questions from Roses-in-the-abyss -  "In Siren’s Rest, Mhairi mentions Muir’s deputy. Did Cor work for Muir in his absence? Did Muir mentor him? We’ve found concept art where he’s listed as a safety representative, so if Muir is one of the reps on the crew, is Cor related to that? If not, what occupation did Muir fulfil on the rig, and how did Cor come into play? Additionally, Innes is immediately referenced when Muir’s name is brought up. Does this confirm that Innes is Muir’s superior?"

A - Sagar: "Yep, you got it. Cor was Muir's deputy, so it was his job to keep track of things if Muir was away. It was Cor's job to keep an eye on the Deck, making sure things were safe and to standard. There are a lot of moving parts on an oil rig.

The office Cor is found in would sometimes be used by other people, depending on who is on duty, but it was mostly Cor who was based there. And unfortunately... It's where he would be based for eternity.

Mhairi has spent YEARS poring over the lists of the people who died on the Beira D. She's gone to their families and really gotten to know what they were like, who they were friends with, what their connections were. She knows, for example, how Roy was godfather to Caz's kids (even though this isn't mentioned in Siren's Rest.) And she believes she knows what the relationship between Muir and Innes was, just like she does about the relationship between Cor and Muir or between Brodie and Raffs. All this information is critical to her search, because it could affect who may have died near whom, where their bodies might be located."

Q - "And I can’t help but ask…The book found in Accommodation with ‘To My Ewan’ stamped into the leather… It’s hidden quite well, almost as if deliberately. Mhairi’s reaction is also curious. How did such a book end up in such an odd place, and is it safe to assume the implications of this memento?"

A - Sagar: "That is funny, isn't it? How odd. How could it have ended up there, almost as if it were in a hiding spot? Such a beautiful journal. Probably expensive to have been custom-printed in the 70s. So unusual!"

Question from Fin - "Who is Alex?"

A - Sagar: "I answered a lot about Alex in Lo-Honko’s question. The body found in the pipe maze with the lighter is Alex Cranstoun. Alex worked hard on the rig, and he was seen in the first game working with Sunil. He works on the Deck and is always fixing something or trying to keep the rig from falling apart. 

Alex was no less loved by his mates. He was a particularly close co-worker with Sunil. In fact, we see the two of them talking together very early in Still Wakes the Deep. Working on a rig can be very uncompromising and very busy. But there can also be a lot of dead time. You have to make your own entertainment. Sunil, Alex, Archie, and Gregor would sometimes have competitions around who could grow the most luxurious facial hair. Let's just say that Alex did not win this competition... He was determined to get his revenge on Sunil during the darts tournament, and even this did not go his way.

Though as a consolation, Alex did manage to win Finlay's lighter off her late in the darts tournament, after everyone was deep in their cups. When the disaster began, and the leccy went out, that lighter was what Alex used to navigate for a little bit while he was running for safety. But it barely lasted a few minutes before plunging him into darkness. And as the rig listed, Alex tragically tripped and fell into a vent, a slow and tragic end for someone who deserved better."

Question from Alkipz - "Anything on Gibbo’s first name?"

A - Sagar: "His full name is Stuart Gibson."

Question from Defiant-Cheek-8661 - "Do you have any thoughts or information about Billy Chamberlain at all? I know he’s not so important, but I really love the guy."

A - Sagar: "Billy Chamberlain is DEFINITELY very important! He's the inciting reason for Caz's presence on the Beira D to begin with!

Yeah, we have a sense of what sort of person he is and what happened that fateful evening at the pub in Glasgow. But nothing more we can share here, I'm afraid..."

Question from switaj - "I’m intrigued by the choice to have the DLC create a branch, depending on player choice at the end; what was the thinking behind that? And do you have an official "what happened" in a planning bible to keep yourselves grounded even if we are left in the dark in the depths or is it also open on your end as well?"

A - Sagar: "Thanks for asking this. It had to do with the overall arc of Mhairi's story. Mhairi, for us, works really well as a foil to Caz. She has more information, plans more, and most importantly, chooses to go into a dangerous situation.

True, she doesn't know quite how dangerous it's going to be. But it's a far cry from Caz, who never expected to be running around like mad on a sinking oil rig, and is equipped just with a screwdriver. His final action is exactly what he has grown to be capable of doing.

By contrast, no one asked Mhairi to go to the bottom of the North Sea and disturb what was there. She chose to. The most straightforward thing to do, narratively, is to make her pay for that choice, maybe with the ultimate sacrifice. But we wanted to reflect the greater agency Mhairi has, and ask the player what they think makes sense for their version of Mhairi. After all, even the game itself opens up a bit more: your version of Mhairi might be more exploratory and less resolute than another's, or vice versa.

We don't branch very widely in this story, just at the end, so it's not too hard to keep the various realities in our heads simultaneously. It would be a different design challenge if the game were built around branching.

Thanks for your question!"

A - Jade: "On Still Wakes the Deep, we wanted to tell a story about a person who was always running, finally deciding to do what's right for his family. A choice would have not given the experience we wanted. 

But Mhairi has a choice because I think we all deal with grief in a different way. When someone dies, you can feel guilty about letting go of that sadness because it feels scary when you build yourself around it. Ultimately, you can either let it consume you or let it go, and I love that we managed to talk about it in such a way.