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SOMA gameplay trailer.

Hanmik

Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syhcF0Mx0j0

just found via the ARG.

Releasing September 22 on Steam and PS4

edit...The ARG was (mostly) solved here https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-24250-page-337.html

and now the Playstion Blog has an update..

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2015...id=604293875746742274&adbpl=tw&adbpr=36969785

We at Frictional Games started working on SOMA in the autumn of 2010, so the game has been in development for almost five years now. This makes it extremely satisfying for us to finally be able to reveal a release date and to look forward to unleashing our creation upon the world.

So why has the game taken so long to make?

The biggest issue has been how to handle our themes properly. We didn’t want SOMA to be just another ‘run from the monster’-affair. While it does have that sort of thing too, as our gameplay video shows, the horror runs way deeper.

The aim with SOMA is to explore the unsettling aspects of subjects such as consciousness, identity and our very existence. We didn’t want to do this by simply having some ham-fisted exposition now and then, we wanted the player to experience this first-hand.

Getting this right has been extremely hard as it’s not something you can easily iterate on. Creating that disturbing sense of existential horror just right takes hours of setup. It also requires a lot of assets to be in place before it can be tested properly. So while other games can make several iterations a week on their foundational elements, it’s taken us roughly a year for each iteration.

Two months ago we sent out the beta, our final iteration, to a bunch of testers. This was quite scary as we knew this would be our final major revision. We’d carried out two big tests prior to that and were pretty clear on what issues to hone in on, but of course we couldn’t be sure that we had made the right choices. If testers failed to have the experience that we wanted them to this time around, there wouldn’t have been much we could do about it.

So it came as a huge relief when the feedback came back overwhelmingly positive. Even those who gave us negative feedback experienced the crucial aspects of the game as we’d intended and liked the game overall. While there were a wide range of reactions, they were all strong and dealt with the topics we’d intended to raise. This makes us quite confident that we managed to achieve our goals and have created a horror game that delves into new, spine-chilling territory.

So all that’s left for us now is just to polish as much of the game as we can, and to make our final release the best one possible. We are all extremely excited about releasing SOMA, and looking forward to hearing what you guys think of it!
 
Looks promising. The sci-fi setting and the cat-and-mouse gameplay gives it a really strong Alien Isolation vibe (that's a good thing to me) but so does do "turn the power off/on" objectives (that's not).

Voice acting is pretty weak but maybe it can be improved. Enemy sound design is great.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Interesting. I like what I see. I wonder if they shifted from the Gieger-esque direction of the first videos or if they're saving that for later
 
That's a really dull setting. Or maybe it's the art direction that just makes it look dull. Doesn't look remotely scary either.

Yeah, not impressed by this.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Disappointingly not coming together for me, mostly due to the presentation. Especially the main character talking.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Flicking through the video, seems to be Alien Isolation with robots.

That's cool, I guess.

Not like they're ripping Alien Isolation off or ranything, they revealed it in October 2013. Alien Isolation wasn't announced until January 2014

Disappointingly not coming together for me, mostly due to the presentation. Especially the main character talking.

I'm with you there. I prefered how it was in Penumbra, character never talks (leave that for Clarence though, that bastard never shuts up)
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
After Alien: Isolation's total nailing of the future space-frigate atmosphere, the style for SOMA comes across as a little uninspired in a lot of places. I'm interested to see where they're going with the talking robots, and the circuit-bent 'Speak & Spell' creature was creepy sounding, but I don't know if I'm feeling what Frictional is putting down on this one.
 

WITHE1982

Member
Looks great. Like a mix of Alien Isolation/bioshock/the matrix. I'm intrigued by the idea of
robots who think they're humans
. A very scary concept.

Nice atmosphere but the main protagonist needs a bit of work IMO. I'll probably pick this up on PS4. Is it a full price release or likely to be a £20 jobby?
 
I was disappointed when I started to hear the protagonist talk, but then as I watched the video more I realized he only talks during narrative segments and has no reactionary comments throughout gameplay, so that's good. Also, the voice acting isn't amazing, but I like voices. A protagonist sounds like a real person, for a change.

Game looks really cool so far. It's a bonus it's out so soon. Definitely on my radar!
 
Didn't look scary at all. The weirdo robots patrolling the area look comical. The fake tension of this trailer was silly.

Maybe I have outgrown this style of game.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
It's Amnesia in space. I don't see much that separates this aside from the sci-fi setting, which; outside of the robot designs, seems really bland.

Underwater facility, actually. And Amnesia was just Penumbra in a Castle. The initial reveal trailer looked really promising so I'll still get this on release date and give it a fair chance.
 
Looks great. Like a mix of Alien Isolation/bioshock/the matrix. I'm intrigued by the idea of
robots who think they're humans
. A very scary concept.

Nice atmosphere but the main protagonist needs a bit of work IMO. I'll probably pick this up on PS4. Is it a full price release or likely to be a £20 jobby?

Ya it will probably be 15 or 20
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Ya it will probably be 15 or 20

Wasn't Penumbra and Amnesia both 30 when they hit?

People here citing Alien Isolation have clearly never played Amnesia!

Or Penumbra. I sincerely hope this game is set in the same universe as Penumbra (in my head-canon, Penumbra and Amnesia already share the same universe)

Edit: And this is seemingly the first 15 minutes of the game. Neither Penumbra nor Amnesia hit their respective strides that early on. I imagine the environment will get more twisted and gruesome as you go. Same with the freaky human-robots.



I hope the game turns out more like this though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWHVkMIP1b8
I remember them confirming that the guy in this footage isn't the main character though. But his VA is much better
 

Kouriozan

Member
Looks more like the disappointing A Machine For Pig in space than Amnesia The Dark Descent.
Hope it's better than what is shown here.
 
God does everything good has to come out during school? I'll be off to College with no gaming system.

mj7.jpg
 
Looks more like the disappointing A Machine For Pig in space than Amnesia The Dark Descent.
Hope it's better than what is shown here.
Machine For Pigs was excellent, but that's the Chinese Room rather than Frictional. I'm excited for this and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, as both are very solid developers.
 

Anung

Un Rama
Shaping up really nicely. Really interested to see Frictional Games take on Sc-fi horror. The main VA could use some work though.
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
People here citing Alien Isolation have clearly never played Amnesia!

I played Amnesia: TDD and AMfP, plus two of the Penumbra entries. I'm speaking more towards the aesthetic of the station and the overall sense of "place" rather than pedigree for spookiness. Even at its best, I never felt Castle Brennanberg was really a place that people occupied at one point. Penumbra and Amnesia helped pave the way for the current horror genre climate, but they've both aged quite poorly to me and from this video, it feels like they haven't applied much that they could have learned over the years.

To each their own, since everyone has a different style of horror that works for them!

Machine For Pigs was excellent, but that's the Chinese Room rather than Frictional. I'm excited for this and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, as both are very solid developers.

Yay, someone else who is as weird as I am! Machine for Pigs held more legs for me because it cut away the pointless oil/match metagame and ditched the convoluted and often poorly-timed sanity system to concentrate on establishing a sense of place and trying to invest you in the story rather than the scares. I much prefer it to TDD.

I don't know how many people realize that The Chinese Room actually wanted to punish players for failure to evade the pig-creatures more harshly by forcing them to escape labyrinthine horrors before returning to where they were caught. Frictional was the one who cut this out and replaced it with simply being plopped back in place with the respawns reset.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Correct. Never played it.

You ought to! Play Penumbra Black Plague as well. Both fantastic horror titles. Unless you don't game on PC I suppose :p

Yay, someone else who is as weird as I am! Machine for Pigs held more legs for me because it cut away the pointless oil/match metagame and ditched the convoluted and often poorly-timed sanity system to concentrate on establishing a sense of place and trying to invest you in the story rather than the scares. I much prefer it to TDD.

I don't know how many people realize that The Chinese Room actually wanted to punish players for failure to evade the pig-creatures more harshly by forcing them to escape labyrinthine horrors before returning to where they were caught. Frictional was the one who cut this out and replaced it with simply being plopped back in place with the respawns reset.

I loved A Machine for Pigs as well. The story was fantastic, voice acting great (The Machine is menacing as hell) and it looked great too. Frictional also were the ones who told them to get rid of the inventory system. They're doing the same for Soma. That makes our little fanclub 3 members :D.
I think Machine for Pigs holds up better for multiple playthroughs than Dark Descent does as well.

Also
dat final ascent up the stairs with the music and the Machine's monologue was spine chilling
 
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