Following their wildly successful Amnesia series, indie developer Frictional has big shoes to fill with their latest title.
SOMA is a first-person horror-adventure game that takes place in a mysterious facility, Pathos 2, deep below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Players assume the role of Simon Jarrett, an everyman who wakes up disoriented and confused in the dark and deserted setting.
As players progress, they learn more about the events that led to the deterioration of the labs through audio logs and notes scattered around the levels. Simon soon realizes he is not alone, as he meets a cast of robotic denizens (for better or worse) and has to solve puzzles along the way to attempt his escape.
This game tackles its horror elements in a number of ways. The most obvious method comes from a handful of hostile creatures scattered throughout levels. They will often be placed around key objectives, making them unavoidable and encountering them all the more stressful. Frictional did a good job creating a multitude of different beasts, each more frightening than the last both in terms of appearance and function. For example, the first hostility players will encounter is a slowly shuffling rogue robot, while later in the game there are encounters with a cyborg that can teleport his way around you.
The atmosphere of SOMA is top-notch. Levels are divided between exploring the tattered facility and the murky depths of the sea floor. Indoor areas are tense and riddled with cancerous technological viscera, the walls ooze questionable black fluids, and light sources are few and far between. Outside sequences are ominously peaceful. Players will use them to travel between the monolithic sectors of Pathos 2 and there are few roadblocks. The sound design ties everything together, and hearing the game’s creepy noises will ensure you never feel safe.
The plot of SOMA reflects its horrific setting as it stumbles into the existential dread of what it means to be a conscious, sentient human entity. Most of the robots Simon encounters believe they are human, and this raises a lot of questions that are answered surprisingly well within the game’s context.
As far as gameplay goes, player movements sometimes feel a little clunky. This is made up for by the highly interactive design, as players can manually open doors and pick up objects by clicking and dragging the mouse around them. Immersion is often broken because Simon regularly speaks, but a sense of presence is quickly returned when players find themselves in a creepy corridor or a heart-pounding chase sequence.
SOMA is a great addition to Frictional’s legacy and will likely induce many fits of terror (and possibly philosophical crises) for those brave enough to join Simon on his existential quest.
