Soma - a Greek word meaning the body, distinct from a mind or soul.
SOMA is a sci-fi horror game released by Frictional Games, the same studio that created Amnesia: The Dark Descent, in 2015. It follows Simon, a Canadian everyman who, after getting an experimental brain scan following a head injury, wakes up in an underwater sea-base, encountering morbid and hostile robotic creatures, and the twisted remnants of the crew. Soon, he becomes embroiled in a plot to pick up the last pieces of this dying station, and change the course of humanity forever.
I have to say, when I first started this game, I had more than a few doubts. Starting in Simon's apartment, it felt like some sort of low quality life simulator. However, when I did get to the meat of the game, it really itself up - creating an atmosphere of constant paranoia and dread as you embark on your journey through the depths. You encounter machines with the minds of people, people warped by machinery and creatures that seem to have transcended both. You have few friendly faces or allies, and those you do can only be communicated with for short amounts of time before you have to venture out alone. While this sounds like an odd rabble of ideas and concepts, the world is surprisingly well thought out, with established rules and mechanics as to how the technologies function, and what has caused them to go so wrong. Where the confusion and despair comes is what to make of the situations ethically. Is a machine worth sparing if it believes itself to be human? Does a copy of a mind have just as much value as the person it was copied from? What does it mean to be an artificial creature, and what are the psychological effects of being one?
The way the game utilises these themes and questions in a way that makes them feel fresh, as if they haven't been asked dozens of times in other works, because they never put you as the experiencer in such a unique position, making the horror not only come from the external threat of the monsters you hide from or the deep sea that confines you in tight corridors with them, but something far more internal (and terrifying) - our ideas of the soul and human nature being challenged, deconstructed and put back together in ways we wouldn't want to think about. Any horror experience could scare you with horrifying designs, brutal acts of violence and foreboding atmospheres, but how many could you say ask you to look at the essence of yourself, and ask you what it really is? Technology is all around you, it's what you rely on to survive, and yet you can't trust any of it to help you. All you have is yourself, and even that is put into serious question, putting you into a deadly philosophical nightmare.
Because of these themes, the underwater setting is the perfect place to set the game. Whether outside with the weight of the sea crushing down on you, or inside, at the mercy of unspeakable opponents, you are trapped, never allowed to come up for air, only able to move further and further down into the deep, much like the fears and doubts the game puts you through.
However, the game offers little in the way of actual gameplay, not to mention frequent pauses for the game to save. It has a very tight focus in what it wants to be, which, although a welcome change of pace from the complexity of gameplay mechanics, open worlds and plagues of collectible from recent titles I've played, can leave the game feeling bare bones and minimalist. Additionally, the voice acting can fluctuate in quality, especially from the lead character, who occasionally feels like he is inserted in from a completely different game. But, for a short, 10-12 hour experience, I can forgive these shortcomings. The aforementioned worldbuilding, atmosphere and existential dread more than cover for the game not being as flashy or polished as others who dominate the media.
I give SOMA an 8 out of 10, which despite not sitting as high as others I've reviewed, is certainly an experience that won't leave my mind anytime soon, and I would highly recommend checking it out for anyone who hasn't done so yet. It truly is one of a kind.
SPOILER SECTION
The Simon you play as is not Simon. The real Simon's injuries were fatal, and he died shortly after the scan. You play as a copy of his, inadvertently given a body, a mismatched one from the body of Imogen Reed and her suit. You spend the game delving further and further into the reality of this predicament, at first perceiving yourself as human, then as inside the suit, before coming to terms with the fact that your body is a composite one that is not your own, and your mind is a copy of a real person. So exactly what of himself is his? He struggles with these ideas, but a computer copy of Catherine Chun, his only source of companionship in his journey, is surprisingly relaxed about them, making her a character in equal parts reassuring and concerning. Her goal, which becomes Simon's, is to launch the Ark, a computerised database containing copies of all of the members of the project, along with the remaining sum of human knowledge, with the goal of travelling into space and continuing the legacy of humanity in digital form. This plan was put into full effect when an extinction level meteorite struck the Earth, and left them as likely the only survivors.
Even before the monsters, this is a bleak outcome for humanity, and this premise allows for the horror to be heightened even further. Unlike the latest action film where the fate of the world is at stake, you really feel a weight as you play - you are the last of mankind, and yet nothing of you is original human essence.
Towards the end of the game, you have to transfer yourself into another body, one with a suit capable of surviving the lowest depths of the facility. You do this and wake in that new body, only to hear your previous one asking why it hadn't worked. This moment is particularly haunting because you realise you are now playing as another copy, and must either leave the original behind alone, or kill him while he is unconscious. The only difference between continuing the game and a you died screen is the choice of perspective the developers have you follow, using the concept of copying one's mind and artificial intelligence in a totally unique and harrowing way that epitomises horror far more than the dark corridors and paranormal dangers.
Every twisted human being you encounter is not just another physical danger for the sake of gameplay, but living proof that whatever is left of humanity is no longer sane or human, until you find the last true human being, and can choose whether or not to let her die or keep her on life support, left in a terrible state at the bottom of the sea like a tortured relic. It is oddly poetic, and tragically beautiful.
The conclusion of the game has Simon finally realise, albeit too late, how the process of grafting your consciousness onto another technology works - he copies it. He sends the Ark off in the belief that he will download himself onto it. Instead, he and Catherine are left down there in a gut-punching reveal that, although we as players likely understand more than Simon, solidifies the despair the game had been building up. Not even the happy epilogue with the other Simon on the Ark can bring your mind back to the suffering that the other must be going through, as even if you can save the digital humans in the Ark, you can never save yourself.
UP NEXT
Days Gone.
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