A departure from their prior games, SOMA is a science-fiction tale of a derelict and terror-riddled deep-sea station called Pathos-II.
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Although Frictional Games have built their reputation on horror and SOMA has been marketed as the “next big thing from the people behind Amnesia: The Dark Descent“, SOMA’s interesting high sci-fi concepts are often delivered to you in clumsy, tropey horror sequences that do more to frustrate the player than draw them in.
Despite this, I had a lot of trouble getting SOMA to run consistently.
SOMA is set in a futuristic underwater complex that’s seen better days.
The game is even able to focus on Dick’s preoccupation with artificial intelligence, with much of the game revolving around dilapidated robots that believe themselves to be real human beings. But when a disaster cut the base off from the mainland, the robots inside were freed to evolve without human oversight. The terror provided by SOMA is delicious. SOMA is a sustained exploration of an original and thought-provoking idea. Although there are a few moments where character reactions seem a bit naïve (Simon seems to think monsters are an everyday occurrence), the dialogue and development is well-paced and explored extensively in collectible files dotted throughout the game.
When encountering enemies, it is a bit like the Slender series in the sense that the screen will distort in varying degrees depending on how close you get to enemies. Deus Ex, this is not. While Amnesia and Penumbra both had intriguing stories, SOMA sets a whole new standard for the developer in terms of masterful storytelling.
When you are in immediate danger, the beating of your heart drums in your ears loudly and the music matches the fevered pitch of the unearthly howling coming from the monster chasing you. While the routes do not vastly differ, it feels nice knowing you have a choice. There are really only about three characters in the game. Simply being in the vicinity of one of these is enough to cause visual distortion around your field of view, and it worsens if you get nearer or look directly at them. Like previous Frictional games, this is a first-person game where the mystery unravels fairly steadily as you explore open areas and search for clues in the form of notes and audio recordings. That never stops being terrifying. Running for your life is always a valid option. Sometimes that experience can be more frightening than dodging enemies at full health, since you’re slowly limping or crawling to safety. Although the game does fall into the trap of seemingly all sci-fi horror, including Alien Isolation and Dead Space, in that you’re constantly moving from place to place fixing things and turning the power on – as if playing the role of some tormented repairman. It may not stir the hordes of wailing YouTubers looking for the next best haunted house, but SOMA succeeds at crafting something much more meaningful in a genre that’s deserving of more than just simple jump scares. I feel nearly afraid to speak any details at all, in fear of ruining aspects of the story, but it is a narrative that will be better enjoyed by playing it with no prior information. It alludes to the particular type of uncertainty at play, as you soon meet a variety of malfunctioning robots who talk and behave just like people.
Even with a few odd quirks – you’ll probably figure out SOMA’s mysteries long before the clueless protagonist – this is an absolutely fantastic game.
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Frictional Games was one of the first studios that provided Linux support for their titles, and a large part of their catalog can be played by Linux users. It’s chilling horror done right; the sort of lingering, psychological stuff that sits in your brain, wriggling in your subconscious for ages afterwards, not the cheap-thrills jump scare horror that’s become so popular. So why would I, the admitted pansy-man, be interested in playing a game like Frictional Games’ SOMA?
