All in all, it’s an excellent title with a memorable story, though not one where you should pick at the seams too much lest you dampen your enjoyment. It’s a game you should play to experience rather than “beat.” Through a mix of aggressive enemies and sparingly-used scripted sequences, Still Wakes the Deep masterfully orchestrates its cycle of tension, dread, panic, and reprieve, balancing all seasons equally.

Sagebrush opens with headlights crossing a desert. There’s a brief monologue wherein a woman recounts meeting someone named Amy, who promised inner peace through the teachings of a man named James. Not the disciple, but an actual flesh-and-blood figure who had a church out in the wilderness. Shortly thereafter, the car pulls up outside of the Black Sage Ranch, an abandoned compound somewhere in the American Southwest where the gates are chained and the windows are dark.

‘The story is simple: Alex is a video blogger of middling fame who goes to locations suggested by her followers. Once there, she digs into the history, documents any experiences, and packages it for her audience. This time she’s off to a remote corner of Russia to explore an abandoned Young Pioneer camp that is purportedly haunted by the spirits of those who died there.’