Fishing for Metaphors

Recently, I finished Soma, a science-fiction horror game released back in 2015 developed by Frictional Games. I heard about the game a few years ago but never took much interest because of the first-person view aspect. Well fast forward to the year 2023, I decided to play it for this year Halloween’s season and also to challenge myself. I played the game on and off because I was not accustomed to controlling the camera angle. Eventually, I got used to the view after quitting and starting the game every 15 minutes. I am so glad of my determination because I haven’t been scared of playing a horror game for a long time.

Story

The game begins with Simon Jarret getting ready to leave his apartment for a brain scan appointment with Dr. David Munshi due to a recent car crash that left him with severe brain damage. Things started to feel unsettling once Simon arrived at his destination at the Pace Laboratories for the brain scan. We learn that Simon has recently signed up for a research study that is in its early stage conducted by Munshi and his colleague Berg who are both neuroscience grad students. So, already right there, I started to feel uneasy about the situation. There’s no guarantee that Simon will get better. He is just a lab rat. But what choice does he have? He only has a few months to live. Some hope is better than no hope at all. After the brain scan, Simon wakes up confused inside a dark, strange facility where Munshi is nowhere to be found. It is until he meets the character, Catherine Chun that the story gets more disturbingly interesting.

Gameplay

Players can select Normal or Safe Mode. I played the game in Normal Mode but I heard the Safe Mode is the better option if you just want to experience the story and explore the atmospheric environment. I didn’t mind encountering the monsters so much in the normal mode. It adds a bit of a challenge that I am all too familiar with–the game over screen. In this game, you don’t kill the monsters, you tiptoe around them to avoid being seen. So for those who enjoy stealth games, this game is fun! Now I wonder if playing in Safe Mode would create a more seamless experience even though I got stuck on one of the puzzles; it was not overly difficult. I just didn’t have the patience to solve them since I was more interested in the storyline. So, yeah I want to know what it’s like to play in Safe Mode.

Visual Presentation

So then let’s talk about the atmosphere and the environment which tied in well with the story. The atmosphere creeped me out. I am used to being in space, in hospitals, abandoned schools, in deserted towns but underwater…. not so much. The majority of the game’s environment takes place in Pathos-II Research facility which consists of multiple facility sites all spread out in the ocean’s floor. The landscape feels compressed and massive at the same time linear. Certain times I am surprised that I didn’t wander off too far from the right direction and certain areas inside the facility feel dark and claustrophobic. I keep circling in circles when I try to escape from the monsters. Some of the monsters aren’t all that unique. I could see inspirations coming from Silent Hill 2 (2001), Dead Space (2009) and Resident Evil (1996). It’s not a bad thing. I didn’t get the impression that Soma was trying to imitate–it was more like paying tribute to the classic horror games without jeopardizing its originality. As I mentioned earlier, this is the first horror video game I played from the first-person point of view. So, the experience is uniquely refreshing especially when the climax of the story is reached. It just made sense why the game is in first-person and not third-person. The first-person view makes me more empathic toward Simon who eventually comes to terms with his new reality. I remember feeling smothered navigating in the ocean’s water. I want to swim for fresh air but I keep descending lower and lower into the bottom of the ocean. The game just gets deeper and deeper until it reaches the lowest point. It becomes depressingly poetic.

Sound

I don’t think I had ever associated horror with machines before until I played this game. The sound coming from psychotic machines and the voice recordings of conversations between powerplant engineers produce a disturbing picture of what went wrong with Pathos-II research facilities. Unlike DeadSpace where I feel like I was the only living soul, I wasn’t entirely alone in this game. The voice of Catherine Chun makes the journey bearable but that doesn’t mean it undermines the scariness and intense atmosphere of the game. Most of the gameplay involves submerging underwater and exploring abandoned facilities controlled by the WAU–an artificial intelligence that oversees the operation of the research facilities. It’s responsible for all the monsters that come across the player and thus is the main antagonist. Some of them can be pretty creepy. The grunting, metallic sound coming from them is just eerie.

Conclusion

This game is intense and atmospheric. I felt like I was drowning inside my head. How bad can things go for Simon when all he ever wanted was some hope to live? After all, Simon is in the process of dying from a brain injury. Luckily the story isn’t entirely tragic. Yes, something has been lost, but also something has lived on. I think that is one reason why I enjoyed the game a lot. It’s philosophical. It asks big universal existentialist questions that leave an everlasting impression on me. It is truly a horrifying and bittersweet experience that made me reflect on my existence.