Culture as (Extra)ordinary: Authentic Representation of Working-Class Experience in Still Wakes the Deep

Abstract

Scholarship has considered representations of working-class experience in games. However, there is a need for ongoing analysis of how games afford accounts of working-class culture as a whole way of life. This paper contributes to this discussion through an analysis of Still Wakes the Deep. Set on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland in 1975, Still Wakes the Deep is notable for its representation of ordinary working- class lives, which developer paratexts frame as authentic. Simultaneously, it engages with a fantastical application of survival horror. Characters in the game are not only entwined with the cultural specificities of their class, but also subject to the influence of survival horror ludic and aesthetic conventions. This paper explores how the game balances representation of working-class culture-as-ordinary with the extraordinary qualities of survival horror. By extension, this paper asks what it means to produce an authentic representation of working-class experience in games.