Frictional Games offers a creepy look at its sci-fi horror game SOMA.
Heavy breathing, low-light conditions, wandering around in the dark — Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Frictional Games loves it. After announcing its upcoming game SOMA early this month, today the company released a gameplay trailer that shows viewers just enough to make them want to know more.
There’s no eerie music in the background, just the frantic pants of the disoriented protagonist as he stumbles through the dark. SOMA is an explorative horror game in which the player must escape with no weapons from a research facility of dangerous machines.
The trailer ends on the famous quote by philosopher René Descartes: “I think; therefore, I am.” Another quote is on the official site of the game;the Philip K. Dick quote reads, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
The site went live in early October and has limited information available at the moment, but two case files are available for view. Item #2656 “Vivarium” was first posted when the website launched. The case file contains a video diary of interaction with a machine. Item #4017 “Mockingbird” also has a video diary. The entry poses a question at the beginning, theorizing how a robot “spontaneously developed a desire to socialize from observing human interaction.” In the video, an engineer converses with a robot who introduces itself as Adam Golaski, the name of an engineer in the game. Judging by the inclusion of the Descartes quote and the information available so far, SOMA will explore machine consciousness. SOMA already feels intriguing and creepy.
SOMA is expected to come out in 2015 for the PC and PS4.
