Still Wakes the Deep’s ending explained

Still Wakes the Deep is the latest entry from The Chinese Room, and while most of your effort goes into running away from nasty Eldritch horrors, there is a deeper story told here. Here is the ending explained, and naturally, your spoiler warning.

Still Wakes the Deep starts with a letter to our main character, Caz McLeary, from his wife Suze. It’s not an endearing letter, but instead a plea that he “comes back home,” and that she will not wait for him if he decides to run away for much longer. 

It’s a dreary note to start on, especially when you find out that on top of a shaky marriage, Caz is about to be fired from his job because the police have found him. But, before he can get on the helicopter and head back home, disaster strikes.

What happened at the end of Still Wakes the Deep?

The rig’s drill – which you walk past on your way to the boss Rennick’s office – has struck something deep underwater, and it immediately unleashes terror.

The rest of the game is spent looking for ways to keep the Beira D afloat while you wait for some kind of rescue. All your other options – the helicopter and the lifeboats – are not working for one reason or another, and all Caz can do now is keep his only solid ground up and hope for the best. 

At the end of the game, Caz and his crewmate Finlay are the only two remaining, but they have different ideas of how to get away from the creature that’s been torturing them and killing their crewmates.

Finlay believes that they need to destroy the monster folding itself deeper into the rig, and runs away to the heart of it. Caz chases after her, trying to stop her, but she’s crushed with rubble before she can reach the horror. 

Caz looks at Finlay, and she hands him the lighter, pleading with him to do what she set out to do. Initially, Caz wants to continue fighting to try and get off the rig, but he eventually gives in to Finlay’s idea. 

He takes the lighter and walks through to the drill where the creature is holding its grip. When you reach the drill, you get a prompt to “Let go,” and the screen fades to black.

Before the game ends, you get a deeper look at his and his wife Suze’s relationship and how they met through flashback-like dialogue while Caz is floating up into a stream of light. Then he wakes up in his bed at home next to Suze. 

You have some time to look around the room at pictures of them and their family, but your only option is to open the door and leave. Before he turns the handle, Caz looks back at a sleeping Suze to promise her he’ll be back for Christmas. The door is opened, and you’re met with a vast view of the North Sea. 

In a callback to the beginning, you hear a last letter from Suze. This one, though, has a different tone – it’s full of love, appreciation, and hope that their relationship will prosper despite everything. Then the credits roll. 

Caz and Suze’s relationship explained

In some parts of Still Wakes the Deep, you end up knocked out for a while – either by having fallen into the sea or coming across a bad fate with the monster ripping the Beira D apart. 

During these periods of unconsciousness, you see parts of Caz’s life, his story, and why he was working on the rig in the first place. When all is revealed, you see that his relationship is under strain because the police are looking for him after he assaulted someone for insulting his wife. 

It’s implied that this person may have been some kind of ex of Suze’s, but the fact remains that Caz seriously lost his temper. He left to work out at sea until the heat died down, and that’s how the Beira D became his new home. 

Throughout the game, Caz speaks of Suze with regret – unsure of how to deal with the problems in his marriage with her and remain a good father to his girls. It’s also implied that Caz has hurt his family, which would be evident anyway since he left them behind to work offshore for a long time.

Is Caz dead?

It’s safe to assume that, after blowing up the Beira D, Caz is dead. When you reach the bedroom in the very last scene, you can also stay there for as long as you want before opening the door. I read this as a sort of purgatory, Caz’s way of taking his time to let go of his life, just as he needed to with the lighter.

What does the ending mean?

The ending of Still Wakes the Deep is largely left to interpretation, so there are a few ways you can look at it.

The most pertinent moment that plays into the game’s message is the very last conversation between Caz and Finlay. Finlay tells him that he needs to do the brave thing, the thing that everyone knew they had to do from the start but didn’t have the courage to do – Blow themselves and the rig up, so the creature doesn’t reach the shore. 

Then, as Caz walks up to the now towering monster, he says “We never had a chance,” before reluctantly dropping the lighter into the oil below.

Even though, at this moment, Caz is referring to the monster, he is also referring to his relationship with Suze. Caz’s regret when speaking of his wife and Suze’s constant concern for him returning home means that there’s still a lot of care between them, but their relationship can never be fixed.

This also speaks to what happens when you ignore your problems for too long –  they catch up with you. Caz had no choice but to doom himself and the creature chasing him, serving as a poignant reminder that he had to face his fear.

Caz starts off alienated from his wife and reaches the point where he is physically alone with the Eldritch horror in the middle of the North Sea, and his own purgatory leads him to the vast ocean where no one or nothing is to be found. This puts the final nail in the core theme of Still Wakes the Deep, which is a story about love, loss, and alienation in conflict.

Still Wakes the Deep is one of the most emotive stories of 2024 so far, but with huge titles like Star Wars Outlaws and Black Myth: Wukong still to come, perhaps these will also present some interesting endings we can delve into.