Review: SOMA

SOMA is a survival horror game for the PC, Mac, and PlayStation 4. It was developed by Frictional Games.

A room on the PATHOS-II. Note the black goo in the back.

Canadian Simon Jarrett wakes up from what he thinks is a brain scan in Toronto to find himself onboard an abandoned underwater laboratory, crawling with horrible machine/human monsters and covered in tentacles and black goo. Stumbling around Simon finds a digital copy of Catherine Chu, one of the laboratory’s scientists, who asks him to help her launch a copy of the crew’s minds into space so that something survived. With little else to do, Simon agrees.

In SOMA you as Simon explore the lab, named PATHOS-II, going from room to room while avoiding the machine/human monsters. Exploring involves finding a switch or a button or an object that will get Simon into the next section of the lab, and rarely a simple puzzle to complete to get to the next lab. Along the way Simon finds logs that explain how everything fall apart.

Frictional put a lot of effort into making every part of PATHOS-II interesting to explore. Every section of the lab is distinct, nothing looks copy and pasted. Little details are nice too, the way you have to pull levers and flip switches to activate things instead of pushing buttons that all look the same make the lab feel more real and believable. Even the outdoor sections are impressive and make you feel oppressed by the vastness of the ocean.

This level of detail extends to the monsters. SOMA does not rely on a lot of jump scares, but that does not make it any less frightening when you enter a room and see one of the monsters on the other side, walking around, oblivious to your presence for now. Simon has no way to defend himself, making the situation scarier.

Getting past the monsters, which is the only thing in the game that could count as a challenge, is rather simplistic compared to all the work put into the design. The monsters, which have very narrow fields of vision, are always in a large room with at least one obstruction, and all you have to do is sneak around the obstruction one way while the monster goes the other way, or hide in a corner and wait for the monster to walk by. It is very simple, and the only real difference is how fast the monsters move and the layout of the rooms.

The few puzzles you run into can be solved in a few minutes at best. Nothing more difficult than line up proper signals or get the electrical current from point A to point B.

Several areas are very relaxed and have and have no sense of danger.

What SOMA does well story wise is discuss at length the definition of an individual and what counts as a person. Simon and the Catherine copy go back and forth about whether AI programs are people, and they find several instances where the sentience of robots is tested.

When previews for this game started showing up I assumed there was going to be a plot twist, like a lot of story driven games have nowadays. I was able to guess what it was, but I appreciate that Frictional gets it out of the way and does not dance around the twist until the third act mark.

The rest of the story though leaves something to be desired. Once all the immediately important questions are answered early on the plot moves with little deviation towards Simon and Catherine’s goal. The robots who are not aware they are robots disappear early from the game leaving nothing but robot zombies and an overpowered all-consuming AI control program.

And the whole situation is so incredibly bleak, while I found SOMA exciting to play it was difficult to start again if I stopped playing because I did not care about Simon and Catherine’s goal, which felt pointless. I kept waiting for a second plot twist that would make me care, and it never happened.

Listening to the logs of the crew are weird too. You would think a malevolent AI taking over their lab and lead to a greater sense of urgency. Instead everyone treats it like a nuisance, including Simon and Catherine, even though it is creating the monsters. Actually, Simon does not take a lot seriously, and is frustrating with the lack of questions he asks.

SOMA is an exciting, scary atmospheric game that is nonetheless somewhat depressing to get through. Everyone should play it for the experience and the story, not for any sort of challenge or detailed game play.