I can’t seem to stay away from entertainment containing the word “bone.” Bone Tomahawk, Bone Thugs, “No Bone Movies.” It’s undeniable. I vaguely recall seeing something come through my news feeds years ago dealing with the original Stasis. I’m not a big PC gamer (though more and more I feel I’m missing a huge segment of innovative works as a result) so I didn’t pay too much attention, other than the usual “Oh. Cool title. Sounds rad.” The original Statis takes place in space where as many will know by now, no one can hear you scream. Twenty-twenty-three’s Stasis: Bone Totem ditches the cosmos for something much scarier and closer to home: the bottom of the ocean.

The setup is simple: You’re a broken family struggling to make a living in a cyberpunkesque world. You take control of husband and wife team Mac and Charlie as they discover what appears to be an abandoned oil rig. They must explore further before any serious thoughts of salvage rights can be realistically pondered. This is an adventure game in the classic style through and through. You’re going to be picking up everything that isn’t nailed down and racking your brain as to how each item can be used or combined to keep you moving through the story. The ability to switch between characters is a nice feature, and one that was utilized several times throughout my playthrough to add in surprising narrative touches. Each character will have different thoughts/comments on each item as you rotate through. Sometimes, these thoughts will give you hints or story information. Neat!

Very shortly after beginning, you gain access to another playable character: the best friend/animatronic bear of your dead daughter. Zang! What a pitch! The bear’s name is Moses, but goes mostly by Mose. One of the things I enjoyed most about this game was its commitment to subtle storytelling, the willingness to stretch things out and let them breathe as you continue along your journey. The voice acting was a big part of this, and ended up being much, much better than I expected when I set out on my journey. Moses in particular brings the gravitas and emotion time and time again.

In a nutshell the story goes like this: our intrepid adventures stumble into unknown horrors and end up having to push through to get out. And these horrors get pretty seriously messed up pretty quickly. You get your garden variety eviscerated corpses, darkened corridors sheltering nefarious pulsings, you know. But there’s a lot I didn’t expect. The level of world building on display is honestly remarkable. As mentioned, cyberpunk is the closest descriptor I can throw at this thing: you’ll find logs from people discussing implants, evil corporations, sci-fi tech, and a lot more. But the complexity given to things like the religions and cool historical references is awesome.

This being an adventure game with a capital A, lets talk puzzles. I’m someone who tends to do OK up to a point with adventure games. Day of the Tentacle? I made it through pretty much on my own. The Secret of Monkey Island? Not only did I have to look things up, I found myself routinely asking how in the hell anyone know to do these things. I guess the adventure gamers of old were made of different stuff! Bone Totem managed to give me challenges throughout, but never became frustrating. As is normal in this genre, a close, careful study is mandatory.

The only minor gripe I came away with had to do with the environmental descriptions, not the writing—most of which were well written and atmospheric—but the way in which you interact with then. As you tool around, there are points of interest that you can highlight. I played on PS5, and the only way to get these to pop up on screen was to point your character at them. Really cool in an immersive world way, but in practice I found that sometimes I couldn’t find the correct angle to read the flavor text.

Graphically, the game is surprisingly well done. Watching the credits roll at the end further reinforced this – the game was largely made by two people! In an world of increasingly mammoth games with sprawling playtimes, it was a breath of fresh air to play something tight and punchy. I’ll definitely be going back to play the original Stasis in the coming weeks. Oh yeah! The deaths. The game has a fun system where there are a handful of achievements for finding character deaths. I haven’t been excited by cutscenes since I was in junior high playing Final Fantasy VII, but seeking these out was awesome.