SOMA

[SRINI87]

Developers: Fricitional Games

Platforms: PS4, pc

Release date: 2015

Genre: Horror

 

Amnesia developer Frictional Games has unveiled its new horror game SOMA, due out in 2015 for PC and PlayStation 4.

SOMA is described as an "aberrant tale of scientific inquiry and survival; an entropic exploration of synapse and circuit that wades through the delusions of human consciousness".

"Strange occurrences are disrupting the routines of the PATHOS-2 research facility," reads the official blurb.

"The radio is silent. Behavioural anomalies of the machines are increasingly dangerous, if not... malevolent. The facility is devolving into chaos. No weapons, and the only escape is practically unthinkable."

SOMA is three years in the making, apparently, and is "a unique continuation of Frictional Games' signature style of explorative horror, provocative storytelling, and unfathomable tension, free of distractive cut-scenes and combat".

Trailer

images

[Big Boss]

Meh/10

[Shadoken]

Also that video is not actually part of the Final game

 

 

While the footage above is unedited gameplay footage (I played through and recorded it myself), it is not from an actual game level. Just like with our Amnesia teaser video, it is a custom made map that is meant to show off the general feel and tone of the game over a four minute long trailer.

/A final aspect of making the trailer was not to have too many spoilers. Because of this, the video does not star the protagonist from the actual game, but a totally different (and minor) character. The events that occur in the trailer are not taken directly from the game either. They just showcase the kind of happenings one can expect from the final game. This means that we can give a good overview of what the game is about, without spoiling the actual game experience. But don't worry, the things in the video are very much related to the game's story. Everything you see are hints of things to come.

 

 

 

 

Meh/10

 

GTFO... it looks amazing.

[Big Boss]

GTFO... it looks amazing.

 

 

Okay then.

[dylanjosh]

I loved it. But I hope the protagonist doesn't talk too much.

 

From the official dev blog:

 

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.in/2013/10/soma-officially-revealed.html

 

 

While the footage above is unedited gameplay footage (I played through and recorded it myself), it is not from an actual game level. Just like with our Amnesia teaser video, it is a custom made map that is meant to show off the general feel and tone of the game over a four minute long trailer. This means that it is not an exact representation of how the game is actually played. It gives a pretty good idea of how the gameplay works though.

 

A final aspect of making the trailer was not to have too many spoilers. Because of this, the video does not star the protagonist from the actual game, but a totally different (and minor) character. The events that occur in the trailer are not taken directly from the game either. They just showcase the kind of happenings one can expect from the final game. This means that we can give a good overview of what the game is about, without spoiling the actual game experience. But don't worry, the things in the video are very much related to the game's story. Everything you see are hints of things to come.

[Shadoken]

^^ Yea main char might not even be the same guy they showed.

 

Love the setting , apparently Amnesia might make it to PS4. And imagine playing these games with Occulus Rift , thats some next level horror....

[dylanjosh]

Meh/10

 

[SRINI87]

 

 

some details

The Five Foundational Design Pillars of SOMA

1.) Everything is story

Encounters with hostile beings are handled in the same way. A creature will never attack you without good reason; they never do it out of pure gameplay necessity. We want every encounter to feel like a bit of storytelling is happening. To get this working properly, almost every single creature has unique AI.

 

2.) Take the world seriously

This leads us to the next point: that every detail in an environment is connected to the story somehow. Nothing should be written off as simply a requirement for gameplay or exposition. For instance, if you find an audio log you will be able to learn more about the story by pondering its placement alone. There should be no need to "double-think"; the game's world should be possible to evaluate on its own terms.

 

 

 

 

3.) The player is in charge

 

When you invest this much in a setting, it's important to make sure that players feel connected to it. In order to this we need to put a bigger responsibility on the player. An environment quickly loses its sense of realism if it is extremely streamlined and does not allow you to make choices. The player must be the one that drives the narrative forward.

The game never tells the player exactly how to progress. There may be hints and other implicit guidance, but in the end it must be the player that figures out what to do next. If a game is constantly flashing up cues with objectives or showing arrows pointing where to go, the player will never take on the world at a deeper level. If it takes some effort to progress, players are forced to understand and mentally map the surroundings in a way they would not do otherwise.

 

 

 

4.) Trust the player

This means that we will let players do stupid things even if they might break the experience a bit. For instance, if they skip talking to a character with important information then they are on their own after that. And if they get hints that a dangerous creature is approaching, they need to figure out that hiding is the best course of action by themselves.

 

 

 

5.) Thematics emerge through play

Now for our last foundational design rule: that the game's thematics will emerge through play. SOMA is meant to explore deep subjects such as consciousness and the nature of existence. We could have done this with cutscenes and long conversations, but we chose not to. We want players to become immersed in these thematics, and the discussions to emerge from within themselves.

It feels wrong to just shove information down the player's throat. What I find so exciting about having these thematics in a game is that the player is an active participant. There are plenty of books and movies that cover these sort of subjects, but videogames provide a personal involvement that other mediums lack. We want to explore this to the fullest degree.

 

 

Src: gaf

[SRINI87]

New Screenshot and Intercepted Radio Message

 

 

 

Transcription of radio message intercepted at XX/XX/XXX.

UNKNOWN: Look, this is the short version. -- [CORRUPT DATA] -- gone rogue. We're not sure what it’s up to, but it looks like it’s messing with the help. Are you hurt in any way, are you guys okay?

AMY: -- [CORRUPT DATA] -- are turning on us! We need to get out of here.

UNKNOWN: Hold on, don't panic. Carl, tell Amy to calm down. You guys can’t have much left to do before evac.

CARL: Calm down, Amy.

AMY: You calm down!

An alarm is heard in UNKNOWN’s mic.

UNKNOWN: sh*t. I got to go. Stay the course, ok? Stay the --

Static outburst after which the signal is lost.

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.se/2014/01/new-screenshot-and-intercepted-radio.html

[SRINI87]

[SRINI87]

[Heaven Angel]

Those game details seems interesting, something new will be introduced, I think

Hoping to see a gameplay at this E3

[Shadoken]

So game is in outer space and underwater O.o?

 

Bioshock X Dead Space

[SRINI87]

 

 

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!

 

[VR46]

atmosphere looks great. waiting for pc . Playing Amnesia was a nightmare ( was way too scary for me ) and now this . hope i can complete the game

[SRINI87]

[SRINI87]

SOMA – Official PC System Requirements:

Minimum:

64-bit Windows 7

2.0 GHz Intel Core i3 / AMD A6

4GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M Series / AMD Radeon HD 5770 (1GB RAM)

25GB HDD

Recommended:

64-bit Windows 7

2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 / AMD FX

8GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 / AMD Radeon HD 8770 (2GB RAM)

25GB HDD

[SRINI87]

[KnackChap]

soma getting excellent reviews.

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1115008

[Walker]

Is this PSN only or retail as well? No I don't have a PC.