scare-threat just wouldn’t work for SOMA. In this game you need time to think. Some sections are tougher than others and having a continuous threat could have turned an interesting part of the game into a stressful or frustrating one. In the same vein, however, there were a few moments when the boundaries between the puzzling aspects and the eeek-it’s-after-me aspects were too clearly defined and we felt a little too safe. Of course that went right out the window when the game swung into its final few hours. More on that later.
The scare factor in SOMA relies on a more sophisticated technique than your average horror game. It’s psychological. The great pacing allows the plot to unfold in such a way that as the player, you feel the same growing horror as the character you’re controlling. Frictional Games have come up with a brilliantly terrifying premise. They want you to question life itself, what it means to have a consciousness and what it means to be alive. They want you to experience empathy and to ponder the consequences of a future that is so advanced that these questions no are longer clear cut but muddied, confusing and painful. It’s wonderfully existential, and as the game rolls towards the finale it is this that is so frightening, not a bunch of jump scares and spooky music. True fear needs to tap directly into your brain. It needs to infect your normal everyday persona and make you feel sick with an empathetic dread. SOMA certainly left us blinking up at the ceiling until the early hours.
As you approach the latter part of the game, things really speed up. The fear cranks up and the sense of peril and suffocation is brilliantly awful. Even the graphics change in certain sections and although it’s dark and hard to see that is sort of the point and it’s done so so well. Also watch out for some terrifying things-we-won’t-spoil . Just close one eye completely, only open the other a smidge and scream all the way through. That’s what we did.
By the time the credits rolled, we
had been playing for around
fifteen hours. It can probably be
done quicker but we are chronic
procrastinators and every
darkened corner is intensely
fascinating. There are ten
trophies to collect and they’re all
earned on the job, as it were. Your fifteen hours will truly fly by.
Conclusion
A top-notch first person horror that uses its story-telling to deliver the fear factor rather than relying on cheap scares. With its beautiful graphics, clever gameplay and haunting plot, SOMA will quickly become Legend. Congratulations, Frictional Games, on a new PS4 classic. SOMA is gorgeous, frightening and full of intelligence.
63