Frictional Games’ first-person horror SOMA has been dated September 22nd for PC and console. The game has been in the works for 5 years and their biggest issues have been ”how to handle our themes properly.”
They didn’t want just another ‘run from monster’ horror, ” it does have that sort of thing too,” but promises ”the horror runs way deeper.” It explores ”unsettling aspects of subjects” like consciousness and identity.
Trying to capture that perfect creepy atmosphere takes a huge amount on time meaning the development team couldn’t iterate as fast as others would be able to on any given area of the game world. Finally though it’s set in stone for September this year.
”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,” explained creative director Thomas Grip.
”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.”
SOMA releases on PC September 22nd. Check out the new gameplay trailer below.
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