Halloween is still more than a month away, but Frictional Games already scares gamers anew with first-person horror adventure SOMA.
The Swedish developer really knew how to evoke fear in players with the Penumbra Collection and especially Amnesia: The Dark Descent (see links for individual reviews), so I’m more than excited what they came up with this time.
The setting isn’t underground, but undersea, with a substation that is filled with horrors in the deformities of humans, creatures, even robots and a dangerous A.I to avoid. It’s certainly a change in setting and atmosphere.
Just like its former games, Frictional Games relies on stealth and no combat, while jumpscares as in other survival horror games are replaced by constant threats, failing lights and a brooding, enclosed atmosphere. Hopefully storytelling will keep up with the pace as well, because Amnesia wasn’t the best example of telling the most original story. However, with inspiration coming from works of Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein, the sci-fi horror might just work and even deal with topics like free will, subjective experience, and machine-consciousness in a mature and subtle way.
Buy the PS4 game on
the PSN store
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